Garden & River Series: Article 2 of 6
Tending the Garden Within
Some gardens are made of earth.
Others — of soul.
In Proverbs 4:23, the Hebrew word for “heart” is lēḇ — the center of thought, will, and emotion — and we are told, “Guard it, for from it flow the springs of life.”
The image is agricultural: the heart is a garden whose condition determines its fruit.
Jesus later echoed this in His parable of the sower.
The soil that receives the seed — kardia kalē kai agathē in Greek, “a heart noble and good” (Luke 8:15) — bears fruit with patience.
Rocky soil resists depth. Thorny soil chokes with worry.
But tended soil — loosened, humbled, watered — yields thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.
So we are called to cultivate.
To pull out the roots of bitterness before they strangle joy.
To let light and rain — Word and Spirit — soften the ground.
To remember that even fallow seasons are not failure; they are invitation.
Sometimes God lets the soil rest so it can receive again.
Tending the garden within is not about performance.
It’s about presence — choosing to meet God where He already is.
He is not waiting for us in perfection but walking among our growing things, as He did in ʿĒḏen, the place of delight.
When the River Moves Within You
Jesus stood in the temple on the last day of the Feast and cried out,
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
(John 7:37–38)
John adds softly, “He spoke of the Spirit.”
In Greek, ek tēs koilias autou — “out of his inner being.”
The word koilia literally means belly, womb, the deepest cavity — the hidden place where life begins.
There, the Spirit makes a spring.
The phrase hydōr zōn — “living water” — means water that moves, never stagnant.
It is the same image Jesus used with the Samaritan woman (John 4), promising water that becomes “a well springing up to eternal life.”
The verb there — hallomai — means to leap, to gush forth.
Grace is not content to remain contained.
When the Spirit fills us, He flows through us.
The garden of the heart becomes a source, not a reservoir.
And like Ezekiel’s river, it grows deeper the further it runs.
The Flow Between Them
In the spiritual life, cultivation and current belong together.
A tended heart allows the Spirit to move freely.
And where the Spirit moves, the heart stays soft — even under heat.
The gardener in us weeds and waters.
The river within us refreshes and renews.
One calls for discipline, the other for surrender.
Both are expressions of grace.
When we learn to care for the inner garden and trust the inner river,
we discover that God’s kingdom is not somewhere out there — it’s already welling up inside.
Scripture Threads
- Proverbs 4:23 — “Guard your heart (lēḇ), for from it flow the springs of life.”
- Luke 8:15 — “The seed in good soil… bears fruit with patience.”
- John 4:14 — “The water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up (hallomai) to eternal life.”
- John 7:38–39 — “Out of his inner being (koilia) will flow rivers of living water.”
Reflection — “Pause / Ponder / Pray”
Pause: Notice your inner garden. Are there areas overgrown, dry, or quietly flourishing?
Ponder: How might the Spirit’s hydōr zōn be moving in you today — renewing what seemed dormant?
Pray:
“Spirit of the Living Water,
turn my heart into good soil again.
Let Your river move freely through me —
cleansing, softening, reviving.
Teach me to tend what You have planted,
and to trust what You are flowing.”
Article Series
Originally published on Medium. Reposted with the author’s permission. All rights reserved.
