Dear Friends,

This is the seventh message in the series on the persons and events God has used to transform my life. These stories are shared to encourage you in your own walk with the Lord.

The reader response to this series has been significant and moving. I am grateful my stories of God’s love and mercy poured out on my weak and fickle flesh has sounded a chord in the hearts of many of you.

For those of you who have written to me about your own struggles and longing to return to the Lord, I urge you to pray a simple but honest prayer, something like I did in the hotel room back in message number four–“Lord, I’d like to talk to You, but I don’t know how. Help me. Wash me clean with your mercy, Restore me to a right relationship with You in your great love. Give me a new life by your grace. Thank you for hearing my prayer. In Jesus, holy name, amen.” Let Him know you are looking for Him, and He will find you.

The further I go with Jesus, the more important prayer becomes to me. This week’s message is a much-published story I wrote about my son, Andrew and me discovering God’s goodness together as we planted and grew a garden. Talking to God together was the key to our experience and prayer became a bond between God and the two of us.

There is nothing my father-heart has ever wanted more than my child know the love of the triune God and be on intimate speaking terms with Him. It pained me greatly every time I would misrepresent the heavenly Father to Andrew in thoughtlessness, impatience, and anger. I learned the prayer of crop failure all parents need to learn–“Lord, wither and shrivel away this bad seed I have planted in my child, and replace it with your love.”

Raising Andrew taught Patricia and me things about God and ourselves that we would have never known otherwise. He grew to be a godly, happy, healthy man, serving the Lord in the fields of marketing and communications.

May you be blessed by this story of how a little boy’s trust in Jesus opened up his Dad’s heart.

. . .

My son, Andrew, and I planted a garden together when he was four. He was growing up in a Southern California city, unlike my rural upbringing in the hills of coastal central California.

I wanted to teach Andrew the secrets of growing things. His grandpa and I built a 2′ x 4′ x 8′ box. I filled it with $70 worth of compost, soil amendment, topsoil, sand and steer manure–a suburban lawyer’s and Home Depot’s idea of “bottomland.”

Andrew poked tiny holes with a stick, making ragged rows for lots and lots of carrots and radishes. We also planted lettuce, beets and cabbage. He made a face at the thought of eating them. “You don’t need to eat it to grow it,” I told him.

The final row was devoted to heart-shaped sunflower seeds. I stuck my index finger in the soft dirt up to the first knuckle. Andrew carefully dropped in the seeds. He scooped-up and patted-down little mounds over them.

Two nights later I took Andrew with me on an errand. As we were driving down the freeway, he suddenly said, “Dad, we forgot rain for our garden.”

“I watered it, son.”

“We need rain for our garden.”

“Do you want to ask Jesus to send rain?”

He nodded.

“OK, you ask him first, and then I’ll pray.”

Glancing sideways, I could glimpse his hands folded and his eyes squeezed shut in the light of the passing freeway signs.

“Dear Jesus, we need rain for our garden so that it will grow vegetables. Please send us some. I love you, Jesus. Amen.”

“Dear Jesus . . .” I began.

“Dad! Don’t close your eyes; you’re driving,” Andrew interrupted.

Two nights later it rained through the night unexpectedly. Southern California was experiencing a long drought back then too. It was a gentle rain, the first in a long time. Though the rain was gone by morning, it was just enough to soak the new seeds.

I showed Andrew the wet street out the window when he woke up. “Do you remember that you asked Jesus for rain? He sent it.”

“Of course,” Andrew said.

Several days later it began to rain again. The drought was broken. It poured every day for nearly a month.

On the way home from preschool one afternoon, Andrew asked Patricia if he could ride his new bike when he got home.

“Not today, sweetheart, it’s raining.”

“Mom,” he said thoughtfully, “do you remember when I asked Jesus for rain for my garden?”

“Yes.”

“I think Jesus thought I meant forever.”

Our backyard is unfenced. Someone stomped through the garden one afternoon. A small footprint smashed a row of carrots. A gum wrapper was tossed between the rows. One of our two sunflower plants was snapped. It was about three feet high and just beginning to bud. The stalk was broken in the middle. Some of its fibers were shredded. The top half hung limp over the side of the garden box.

Andrew was upset. So was I, even more. We argued about who could have done this thing. “Maybe a kid,” I said.

“No,” he declared. “A kid would never do something like that! A grown-up would.”

I wasn’t so sure. My anger and sadness turned to suspicion. “Andrew, by any chance did you do this?” I asked him.

Andrew was indignant. Lifting one foot up until I could see the sole of his sneaker, he demanded. “Do you see this foot?”

“Yes.”

He pointed at the footprint in the garden. “Do you see that footprint?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think this foot made that footprint?” The footprint was obviously larger than his foot.

“No.” I averted my eyes and mumbled, “I’m sorry.” The son of a lawyer had learned his lessons well. The defense rested, having destroyed the prosecution’s case. Andrew huffed off across the yard.

I reached down then to pull out the broken plant, but I couldn’t do it. Father and son had placed the seed tenderly in the ground and watched it grow together. We had thinned out the other plants, choosing this one to grow. We had watered it and protected it.

Now I could not kill it. I would wait until it turned brown and withered before I pulled it out. “Silly,” I thought to myself, “but I cannot destroy what I love.”

A week later I noticed a surprising thing. The plant still hung down, but its head had twisted on the stalk until its bud faced the sun. The stalk was contorted. It looked unnatural even painful.

The broken plant continued to rise as the day’s passed. It reached the point where it stood straight out at a 45-degree angle from the broken place. The torn fibers strained but held. The bud blossomed and the warm sun drew its namesake up toward it. I marveled.

The weight of the blossom appeared too much for the broken stalk to bear. There was nothing going for the broken plant but life itself.

The stalk straightened and thickened at the torn place. It actually became stronger there.

We went on vacation for 10 days. I raced to see the sunflower when we came home. It bloomed full–a rich, dark chocolate face surrounded by yellow petals. It was taller than its companion plant.

The head became so heavy with seeds that I thought the stalk might break again. It held, but leaned far out of the box. The seeds filled its heart in an intricate concave pattern. Bees were feeding on the sweetness of the huge flower.

Andrew took friends and visitors out to see the remarkable flower. They became quiet and reflective when I told them the story of the broken plant that I couldn’t bear to destroy.

We come to Christ this way, longing for life and growth and beauty as we were created to be, but broken, shredded and limp as we really are. The Lord’s intentions toward us are the healing of our wounds and the forgiveness of our sins. Those who heed the call of his kindness and turn to face him will find new life and peace where once wounds and pain seemed to dominate.

The disciple Andrew brought some curious visitors to see Jesus, the full flower of God’s love, one afternoon. Jesus used the occasion to explain the facts of life in the kingdom of God.

The hour is come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds… Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say– ‘ Father save me from this hour? ‘No it was for this very reason I came to this hour….But I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself (Jn. 12:23-32).

In our surrender of our erring, damaged lives to him, a hard heart-shaped seed dies to live. Our wounds submitted to our Abba in prayer become points of strength. Surprising, surpassing glory springs out of our brokenness. That glory belongs to the Father and the Son who, in their love, cannot bear to destroy what they have planted and watered.

It’s true for you and me, you know. Jesus Christ will not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering, flickering candle (Mt. 12:20). He gently brings us around to face his direction. He heals us with the warmth of his smile and shelters us in the hollow of his hand while we grow strong in his grace. This is the message of the sunflower gospel.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.