In The Garden

It's official, by the National Weather Service at least.  The growing season is over here in Harrison, Arkansas.  The last four days with nighttime temps reaching into the low 30's forced them to declare what we already knew.  Winter is on it's way.  Sparrows, starlings, and a host of other birds were forming huge swirling flocks that resembled clouds more than flocks.  My office above the church is a little chilly, but I don't need to run the heater.  I'll be leaving in just a little while to go back out to a finger of land out on Bull Shoals lake.  
I was working out on the far fringes of Bull Shoals lake yesterday, without cell phone service, and will be doing so for the rest of the week. In my 'cloistered' work environment, I found myself enjoying the silence and the contemplation.  Then, it hit me, those moments when a song jumps into your head, and you can't lose it.  "I come to the garden alone. . . ."   ALL DAY LONG.  I sang it loud, (no one is around)  I sang it slow, fast, jazzy, I even gargled it.  You know you're messed up when you gargle a song.  I laughed, cried, and even stopped to pray for a while.  After messing around with it for quite a while, it hit me; I was in His Presence.  Which suddenly put me in a profound sense of shock.  HOW?  I'd just twisted one of the most endearing hymns of the Church into . . . .only the Lord knows.
From that profound sense of shock, I slipped into an even deeper state of intimacy.  I was like a little child who'd been caught singing while in the tub. The Father of all creation was whipping out the video camera, and enjoying His child.  I'm not a dour person by any means.  I don't like mean humor (which is what most of TV puts out, today).  I grew up devouring the comics section of the newspaper.  I never liked it when Lucy pulled the ball away from Charlie, or Limpid Lizard teased Bucolic Buffalo. I used to laugh a lot more than I do today.  The Muppet Show, will always be one of my favorite TV shows.  Laughter is good medicine, just not wicked laughter.
Fear kills laughter.  Fear, doubt, and worry are the side affects of being outside of the Father's presence.  I know!  This past month has been a stressful month.  Not because I hadn't had enough work to make bills, but because I allowed myself to worry about it.  You see, as I look back over the last month, I couldn't see where worrying about it, made work appear for me.  Yesterday, even though I didn't have two dimes to rub together.  I was enjoying the Presence of God in a playful almost childlike way.  I'd allowed my heart to be sick, and the message from the Lord was simple.  "I'm in the boat with you.  I'm in the garden with you, but I'm not worried.  Where I am, is fullness of joy."  
The second sin in the garden, was worry.  "I knew I was naked."   What am I to do with my nakedness?
As I thought on this, I was suddenly filled with the sensation that God was laughing. He sees me all the time in my nakedness.  Not my physical nakedness (which is a complete gross thought.)  He sees me in my spiritual nakedness.  He sees my form, the spiritual being that is David Bragg.  I was his little boy in the bathtub singing to himself because I thought no one was around.  As parents, we all know that all is right with the world, when our children are singing in the bath.
Today, I'm going to take my radio, put on some Jesus Culture, and make it echo across the lake.   If I started to sing 'In The Garden' today, it would seem a little contrived.