In The Garden - God Speaking

     In The Garden is an on-going collection of messages from the Lord that I've received over the years during personal times of prayer and listening for His voice.  I believe it's God's desire to speak personally to each one of us who has partaken of the "heavenly calling".  If we spend time loving Him, quieting our hearts and minds from daily demands,  and trust the still small voice of the Spirit within, His loving wisdom and truth becomes the daily bread our souls so desperately need.

     I began listening for His voice within during a difficult period in my life when I realized I needed a more personal knowledge of His love, friendship, and fatherliness.  I'm not saying that I asked to hear an audible voice, or to have some kind of manifestation in the physical realm. I've heard stories of believers that have done so, either testing God's reality in their life, or wanting to flirt with the supernatural out of ignorance, and were accommodated by spirits manifesting that were not from God.  I DIDN'T WANT THAT.  But, I knew that I had received prophetic words from God in the past for other people that brought them comfort and encouragment. I thought, certainly He would want to speak to me.

The How

     At a time when I would not be disturbed, I sat with my eyes closed and began loving the Lord. To me, worshipping and loving Him are synonymous, so I would just tell Him how wonderful I thought He was, expressing love, and praising Him for any small thing that came to mind.  Then, getting quiet inside I asked Him for the ability to hear Him.  In my mind  I saw myself in a peaceful, lush garden with grass and trees, and a stream trickling through it.  And I saw the Lord Jesus there, his hand reaching out for mine, inviting me to come sit with Him. I could sense in my spirit, His loving, perfect Presence, and I opened my heart and mind to converse with Him.  Personal words and messages began to flow.

     Sometimes, I meet with Him in the Garden of my heart, and the place in my spirit's mind is actually high in a mountain forest, or at a quiet lakeside. Places that are calm and beautiful to me.  Our conversations are mostly Him speaking, as He knows my thoughts and concerns before I verbalize them. But He always brings me PEACE and COMFORT, and challenges me to live higher and deeper with Him.  He doesn't rebuke or criticize, or point out where I'm failing.  His words are always loving, encouraging, and in agreement with His written Word in the scriptures.



    Some might say I'm just imagining things, or indulging in fantasy, or just making it up.  But, as we give ourselves wholly over to Him in love and faith, even our God-given faculty of imagination is used by our spirit and His Spirit to communicate and relate on the heavenly plain.  (See Romans 6:13.) 


     God wants to speak to us, and we can hear Him if we invest our selves in knowing Him.  I'm still growing in my relationship with the Lord, and certainly wouldn't say I know Him as intimately as possible.  But as I give myself in time and effort to know the TRUTH of Who HE IS, the deeper my relationship grows with Him. I'll be writing in future about ways of developing a more personal relationship with God to KNOW Him.