Isaiah 1:30

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"A garden "that hath no water." Isa 1:30

How wonderfully the powers of nature co-operate! How wonderfully, too, things that are far separated from one another have a mutual influence! Yet the influence is not always mutual; sometimes it is entirely on one side. The garden has no effect upon the clouds, but the clouds have a wonderful effect upon the garden. What would the garden be without rain? Soon it would be but so much dry and fruitless dust. It is united in its substance and made productive in its influence by the sun, the rain, and the living air. These do for the garden what the Spirit of the Lord did for man when he was made out of the dust of the ground. They breathe into the garden the breath of life, they redeem the ground from desolation and turn it into a garden of beauty. How often we see in character the exact counterpart of this picture! A man may have many qualities which are totally useless for beneficent purposes on account of the baseness of some one agent or influence. The garden, for example, may be large, and may be laid out with picturesque effect as to its outlines; the paths may be broad, the beds may be shapely, and the whole may be complete as a picture; yet for want of the rain what have we but fruitlessness and desolation! So it is with character. Men may have great intellectual capacity; but unless they be filled with the spirit of grace their very intellect becomes but an instrument of ignorance itself. Men may have large material resources, but if they never receive the shower of divine blessing those resources will be without fruitfulness in relation to surrounding poverty and pain. We often see a man who is ruined for want of one thing. He has bodily strength, he has great material riches, he has a good social position, yet for want of grace or courage or patience or sympathy the whole estate seems to be lost. The rain itself would do no good if it had not a garden to fall upon. The rain does not make the garden, it only falls upon the soil and puts it into workable conditions. So the very grace of God must have something to fall upon. We must supply the outline, the nominal man, the capacity; and the grace of God working upon these will issue in a great miracle. A rich man who has no sympathy is as a garden that hath no water. An intellectual man without religiousness of feeling is as a garden that hath no water. A well-read man without the disposition to communicate his knowledge is as a garden that hath no water. A family that has no outlying dependants or clients is as a garden that hath no water. Do not call it a garden; call it a wilderness. We should seek out the name of the blessing which we most need, and should ply heaven with our prayers until we receive that essential gift: otherwise the best of us will be as a garden that hath no water.