“For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9). I once had it explained to me that there are two kinds of writers. There are architects, and there are gardeners. The architects draw up a masterplan for their novel, outline all of the important specs and the shape and dimensions of the story, and then go to work building everything out according to the plan. The gardeners start their stories with only the seed of an idea, letting the story grow and take shape as it will, cultivating and pruning when required. God is both the architect and the gardener of our lives. We are His husbandry and His building. He has a masterplan for us, and He has prepared all of the building materials and subcontractors to help us realize and execute His architectural vision. But He also respects our agency. He has given us the light of Christ and the Living Waters and the soil of hope that our seeds of faith may grow and flourish. And like any good gardener, He will judiciously prune a branch here or there if it has started to shrivel and decay or else has become too big and unwieldy that it threatens the integrity of the plant as a whole. If we are to successfully collaborate with the Lord on the shape of our lives, we have to seek understanding on when we are a part of God’s husbandry and when we are a part of His building. Sometimes we are the plant that God trusts to grow as it will. He has prepared enough space for us to send out roots and branches, leaves and flowers and fruits as we see fit. Not all of our ideas will be great, but He will make sure we don’t grow in such a way that He can’t provide some much needed course correction. And sometimes we are the building that God has meticulously mapped out and He will not allow shoddy workmanship or anything that isn’t one hundred percent up to code. We should rejoice and be grateful when God as the architect has specific and concrete plans for His building. The building might look a lot different than what we had in mind, but God has been in the construction business a lot longer than we have so maybe we should just follow his lead. And we should go forth with faith and not fear when God leaves us to our own ideas about how best we can grow our little plant. He will keep an eye on us and make sure that there’s no weeds or rocks getting in our way and He will step in and prune us if He feels that we are growing in a self-destructive manner. Whether He is our Gardener or our Architect, whether we are His husbandry or His building, we are in very good hands, and when He has finished with us, we are going to be the most beautiful collection of buildings and plants, constructed and grown together in perfect harmony.
