Garden of My Heart
Stories have been capturing our imaginations since the beginning of time. Dreams fill our minds while we sleep. Problem solving requires a reinvention of a situation. Fantasies come to life in children’s play. We are beings created with imagination, a place where our minds form pictures that can help us make sense of the world. Naturally, some of us are more imaginative than others. Our brains are all wired a bit different. Black and white thinkers don’t quite see the world the way abstract thinkers do. Sadly, these differences can cause friction and division, but on the best of days they make the world and the Body of Christ a beautiful place to be.
I’ve been on a bit of a journey of connecting my imagination with my relationship with Jesus. Something I’ve kept close to my chest and only talked about with a couple close people. First, it’s a wonderfully personal thing. Second, it can sound a little weird and I didn’t want people to misjudge things and think I’ve jumped off the deep end in some way. Trying to represent well over here! I finally decided it was worth the risk, because maybe there will be someone who resonates with and needs this.
When I look back over my life at the times when I experienced God in very personal and powerful ways, my imagination was always involved. Not me inventing a version of God in my head, but me encountering Him. I’ve seen Him use imagination to connect me to who He is. He’s painted pictures in my mind to help me understand Him. And I’ve heard testimony of others experiencing the same. But before I move forward, I have a disclaimer!
DISCLAIMER: I follow Jesus. I frame my life inside the unchanging truth of the Bible. I am a creative. I am sharing thoughts and experiences. We can still be friends if you disagree with me.
There have been other ways God has led me along this journey to deeper connection to Him, but a while ago, I was on a walk listening to a podcast. This walk was a rare opportunity to be alone so I debated on even listening to anything at all. I felt maxed out and unable to take anything else in and thought the silence would be salve to my soul. Turns out, I was afraid to have the quiet on this particular day. So I pushed the earpods in and randomly searched for a podcast. I don’t know why I wanted it or how I landed on the one I did (I don’t regularly listen to anything), but that walk with that message turned out to be the divine appointment I was desperate for. I remember turning off the podcast, sitting alongside the road, staring into the field. I had no words. I just had those moments of being and my soul crying out for an encounter with Jesus like this lady was talking about.
Stasi Eldredge was being interviewed and she talked about meeting God in the garden of her heart. The wording and imagery immediately resonated with me. Garden, obvi. But more than that, catching a visual of walking with God through my heart - all that’s going on inside of me no matter what’s going on outside of me! Doesn’t matter that I can’t get away from the chaos, He lives inside me and I can retreat internally anytime, anywhere. Spending time with Jesus in my actual garden is a normal thing for me. That’s our spot. But this was different.
Stasi walked through an example “encounter” (as she calls them!) on the podcast! Those few minutes felt like a counselor leading me to the things I’m comfortable ignoring and helping me to face and walk through them. I found myself weeping as she helped me engage my imagination to see whatever Jesus put in my mind. He was intimate and tender and just what I was desperate for. By asking Him to cleanse my imagination so I can see Him more clearly and understand Him more fully, He met me where I was in heart and mind and comforted and strengthened me there. So many times throughout my life I have encountered Him in this way, but I just didn’t have the language or awareness to understand the experiences the way Stasi helped bring them together for me!
When I open up the space to sit with Him, I experience a walk through the Garden of My Heart with Jesus. He leads me, quiets me, goes to those places I didn’t know I needed to go with Him, and overall takes His rightful place in my heart. This practice might sound a little different, but it’s no different than quieting yourself before Him or listening for His voice or abiding in Him. If we are Jesus followers: this is what we exist for; this is what we are called to. When I open my mind, body and spirit to Jesus alone, I experience Him.
If your day to day is anything like mine, our “quiet times” with Jesus usually don’t include our entire mind, body and spirit encountering Jesus. Sure we encounter Him in other ways - His Word can still be timely and encouraging; we can still be led by His Spirit through specific things; we can still hear His whisper. But the deep soul encounters take more than Read-through-the-Bible check marks and the day’s needs list sent His way.
In this season of life, I’m not able to take consistent, large chunks of time to create the space to sit with Jesus like I want to. Most days I’m trying to fill my head with a piece of His Word as I move through all the things, and trying to look and listen for Him in the midst of all the life. There’s value here too, but there’s nothing rhythmic and peaceful about it. What I can do in this season is carve out once a week when I know I will have no interruptions to sit in a quiet place and take a walk with my Jesus through the garden of my heart. If I can make coffee appointments, dentist appointments, eye doctor appointments, surely I can make Jesus appointments. These Garden Walks are something different. They are deeply life-giving and healing.
I’ve put together a little Practice Guide for you to download and use as a resource to help you encounter Jesus in a deeper way.
Have you ever tried this sort of practice before? Let me know what helps you encounter God.
Note: I don’t know a lot about Stasi Eldridge or all that she stands for, but God used this podcast episode to minister to my heart just when I needed it!
