This post is going to be short. The sun is SHINING and I must get out to my garden – my plants are calling…

This thought has been percolating in my brain since my husband, Phil, shared this scripture when preaching recently.

I believe God has a plan.

• for all creation
• for our universe
• for our world
• for our country
• for our community
• for THE CHURCH
• for our particular fellowship of Believers
• for my family
• for me

It is not an accident that I was born in 1951, to parents who lived in Wheaton, Illinois, who raised me in a God honoring home. God placed me there, I did not choose them.

Yet what a profound influence that has had on my life! Since then I have exercised my God given free will to choose to follow Jesus.

God has led me, disciplined me, blessed me, caused me to suffer – all to prepare me to fulfill His plan in me and through me.

Divine placement is a wonderful concept to ponder. In looking at back at my 67 years of life, I can see God’s hand at work – over and over. At the time I was often not aware of His presence, but in hindsight I see clearly His influence – over and over.

Phil recently helped me transplant a Japanese maple that my father had grown from a two inch seedling. He had brought it back to North Carolina in a baggie on an airplane from my brother’s home in Oregon. Dad had first planted it in a sheltered place above a rock wall in our yard that is protected from too much sun, and from grandchildren’s feet. When it grew to about 12 inches, (about 4 years) he moved it to a large planter where it has grown for the past 12 years. It had become root bound and I knew if it wasn’t transplanted soon, it would become unhealthy and eventually die. We planted it in the ground near to the location of the planter because it had grown well there.

Divine placement?

Paul instructed the Corinthian church on how to grow as the Body of  Christ. He explains that our function or placement in the Body is not arbitrary.          I Corinthians 12:18

¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be?

Divine placement!

Each of us has been placed by God to fulfill His purposes. Sometimes we must be transplanted to stay healthy and grow. We may need to “uproot” our children at times to provide an environment where they will receive the needed nourishment and nurture to thrive. God has a plan.

My parents moved after living in our home for 8 1/2 years to a retirement community back in Wheaton where I grew up and where they had lived years earlier. I missed them dearly after they moved. They were 89 and 85 at the time, but how they flourished after being transplanted to that community! They both finished strong at 91 and 90.

Divine placement.

May we grow where we are planted. May we be healthy and bear fruit for GOD’S GLORY.

 

In My Garden with God   #16