I Come to the Garden Alone

Two thoughts to leave here in this garden today. Hopefully, by leaving both here, I'll find my peace and quiet that my soul so desperately needs.

First, Workaholism. I am a workaholic. I struggle with workaholism every day, almost every moment of every day. And why, you ask? Well, I ask myself the same thing. I'm a list person so at work it's really easy to just make a to do list and keep my head down to get things done as quickly as possible, hoping that the list will end one day and I can go home and live happily ever after. The truth is that the list will never end, so long as we breathe this air anyway. I've come to believe that the root of workaholism is a form of idolatry. For what is idolatry but becoming a slave to something other than God? I've become a slave to work - to that lengthy To Do List that accomplishes such trivial things rather than serving the God who created all that we see, hear, smell, taste, sense, and think. And then I look at my To Do List, which has turned into a small and pathetic excuse for a "god", and I wonder, Where did I go wrong?

I guess that's what happens when you "keep your head down and hustle" (a quote from a great movie monologue in the Rom Com Last Holiday from Queen Latifah). I've forgotten to look up. I've forgotten to see, hear, smell, taste, sense, and think about the Above. Like a compass that needs to be fixed to point due north again, I find myself needing a bit of an adjustment.


Thought numero dos:

Hymns. Yes, good ol' fashioned hymns. We don't sing enough of them these days. They use big fancy words like transgressions and atonement and transcendence.

But maybe those big fancy words push us to think about the God we serve and how big and fancy He is. I dunno. I kinda wish we got out of our little praise choruses for a moment and sing something that has some weight to it. Sing something that makes us a little afraid. I'm not talking scary fear. But if we sang something that was so weighty and thought-provoking that we'd fear if it were right about God, we'd have to make some real changes as to how we talked to Him or spoke about Him...well, it might make us think a little higher of God. And isn't that what worship is supposed to do? Elevate our thoughts about God so that we stop ourselves from thinking that WE are God?

Let's pause here. And let this stew for a while. What songs do this? And why aren't we singing more of them? Do the fancy words scare us away? Or perhaps it's the thought of something that we sing that could actually change the way we respond to God...and I guess, others too?

Anyway, that's all I've got.

Sometimes when we're quiet enough to think about BIG things, we come away with more questions than answers. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Life is full of questions, but maybe these kinds of thoughts remind us that we have to be still long enough so we can ask the right questions.


I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.


And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.



I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.