The gardener and the carpenter is the title of a book on parenting. I haven’t read the book (I’m not a parent) but the premise behind it caught my imagination so I read a quick synopsis. The essence is that when parenting, it is not the job of a parent to dictate and therefore carefully shape the mind of the child, but to create an environment where the child can explore and discover. A carpenter thinks they can transform the wood into a chair. A gardener knows they don’t actually have control over their plants but aims to create the best conditions for the plants to flourish.
How is this relevant? Over time I have heard Christians take a different view on how God works with us. Some say God preordained our lives and things are fixed. Others say God gave us free will and we choose our path. Those are the two extremes, neither of which sit well with me. I’ve also heard God compared to a master chess player, but in my mind we are either the opponent (we’re not) or we’re mindless pawns (we’re not that either!)
The bible talks about God’s plan. Psalm 139 talks about all out days being written before we were born and Jeremiah is often quoted – “I know the plans I have for you”. However, there is also writing about choices. John’s Gospel has Jesus saying, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God”, and back in Genesis Adam ans Eve make a choice to eat the fruit which is clearly not God’s specific plan. The bible doesn’t give a definite answer.
So when I came across this analogy something clicked for me. God could have been a carpenter. Indeed, looking at the creation story God played the roll of the carpenter, transforming matter into a world with seas and land, plants and animals and, eventually, humans. But then he changed. He became a gardener, giving mankind the best possible circumstances to grow and flourish. OK, it didn’t turn out quite right, but in a garden, the gardener knows that their plans may be thwarted by pests or weather.
So this is where the analogy fails a little. God could do something where a gardener couldn’t. But that’s where rhe element of love comes in. God could be a carpenter, dictating how everything should happen and we would all become examples of perfect ‘chairs’. But that wasn’t what God originally designed. He designed us to be thinking, growing beings. He created us all unique and part of life is to discover who we are. God has created the circumstances for us to discover that. Sometimes external factors knock us, sometimes the pests and the weather mean its a battle to grow. Sometimes, our choices are the things that marr the garden. But through it all, the loving gardener is there to tend and to feed. He doesn’t give up thinking the garden is hopeless and not worth the hard work. He knows that as we grow and bloom we will discover and adventure and love.
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