A Prayer About Gospel-Gardening
Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. James 3:18
Lord Jesus, you know my less-than-stellar history of being a backyard gardener. Like the time I planted the cucumbers and the cantaloupe too close to one another and, through the wonder of cross-pollination, grew either “catacumbers” or “cuculoupes”-an interesting sight but worthless to eat.
But I praise you that there’s at least one kind of farming for which there is no possibility of failed crops-sowing peace-living as a gospel-gardener in all kinds of “soils” and settings-seeking to plant the seeds of shalom with the promised hope of luscious, delectable, righteous fruit.
Lord Jesus, you are the quintessential Peacemaker, and my only hope for a good crop of reconciliation and restoration is entirely bound up with you. For I’ve born the worthless fruit of both my peace-breaking and my peace-faking in the past.
Lord Jesus, please help me stay very alive to the peace-making you have already accomplished between yourself and me. While I was your enemy, you died for me-destroying the hostility, deconstructing the enmity, displacing my insanity through the gospel of peace. You have reconciled me to yourself through the price of your blood. You have secured the ultimate reconstruction and “shalom-ing” of my whole being. The coming harvest of glorification is not the least bit in doubt. You will bring to completion the good work you have begun in each of us, and your universe. There’s no chance of crop-failure, none! Don’t let me forget this hope for one nano-second.
Give me your patience, when gospel-gardening takes much longer than I want. Give me courage, when you send me to people and situations I want to avoid like canned asparagus. Give me love, your love, for you have called me to people not to a project. So very Amen, I pray in your peace-making name, Lord Jesus.
