Last week I found myself on a mountain in Daytona FL. If you know anything about Daytona, that might sound like a strange statement. So let me explain.
Last week I was at the Pastors’ Conference for the Florida Georgia District of the LCMS, me and some 200 of my fellow pastors got together for continuing education, refreshment, and reunion. One of our speakers (Rev. Dr. Leo Sanchez of Concordia Seminary) invited us to think about our “three places”. He encouraged us to think of three metaphorical places: our garden, our mountain, and our playground.
The garden is where we work. It is where we are fruitful. You work in the garden to produce stuff. Each of us have different plants growing in our garden. My garden is populated with plants that produce things like student leaders, sermons, and football parking set ups for the upcoming Miami game. Yours is likely populated with other plants, which is good, because we need to all bring the fruits of our gardens together for the sake of the Kingdom. Nobody can grow it all, but we can grow enough for ourselves and enough to share.
The mountain is where we go to get away with God. So while Daytona is a pretty flat area, I was able to climb it as a mountain – because it was a place for me to get away and be with God, to learn, to be formed – not to produce but to commune. I’d like to think we climb the mountain together most Sundays, but there are other times that we can go to our “mountains” to be with God. Jesus went up the mountain to talk with His Father throughout His ministry – sometimes alone and sometimes with a few disciples.
The playground is probably my least used spot. My playground equipment is rusty with disuse and disrepair. Maybe yours is too (I hope not, though.) Our playground is another place where we are not necessarily “producing,” but sometimes it looks like work. Maybe your *actual* garden is your playground – where you get to play in the dirt. Dr. Sanchez’s playground was playing the upright double bass for a community symphony in St. Louis. Our playgrounds are where we do things, but we do them for the joy of doing them. Which means that sometimes playgrounds are hard to define because one person’s playground is another person’s garden.
Where are your three places? Is one of those places sitting unvisited? Is it more than one? We probably don’t need our three places in equal amounts. Our gardens will always need tending, but that doesn’t mean that we should let the mountain or the playground become unfamiliar places to us.
The beauty in all three of our places is that Jesus Christ promises to meet us in all of them. He doesn’t just wait for us to climb the mountain. He doesn’t resent us for going to the playground. He simply comes and visits us as a friend no matter where we are. But I don’t think He wants to spend all His time in your garden anymore than you do. So get out with Jesus and meet Him at the mountain and the playground, or maybe just realize that He is there with you while you’re weeding in your garden. He’s promised to meet you wherever you are.