My Abandoned Post

Two years have passed since the prayer garden at the Salvation Army in Lewisville was completed. If you don’t know the story of its creation, there are several earlier posts you can read. I remember looking over it with pride, every detail finished.

There were interviews that gave me the chance to explain to people that the location was special. It is the gateway to the downtown area which now offered a meeting place with God. To the throngs of people who pass through every day, it is a quiet invitation to spend time with the Father.

If you were to drive up or walk by, a nine-foot, lighted cross is the first thing to capture your attention before the beautiful flowers and colorful shrubs draw you in. Benches are scattered about as an invitation to come and sit for a spell. But my favorite piece has always been the large rock at the foot of the cross. Water flows from the top, out of a lighted ring that makes it look like an unquenchable fire as it pours out of the stone and into the ground, never running dry.

This water feature was paintstakingly constructed with its own water reservoir and electric source. It is automatically filled and given a rest for a couple hours each night around 2am while the city sleeps.

However, I’ve never told anyone the real reason that it was built to run fully automatically and totally attention-free.

My passion is building but my attention span is short which encourages me to flit from project to project, creating beautiful things but moving on as quickly as possible. While I was building the garden, God kept asking me if I would watch over it, keeping it ready for him to meet with people.

In truth, I had no interest in checking on it every week to see if it was in proper order and the plants were healthy. I was relieved when some of the people who were served by the Salvation Army eventually adopted it. Johnny in particular has watered it nearly every day to guarantee it stays beautiful. Fortunately, other people also pitched in for replanting and seasonal upkeep.

But the voice never went away, asking if I would watch over it. I knew that no one would expect me to be the constant caretaker, so I didn’t tell anyone about the recurring voice. Instead I did my best to build it to be so durable that it would never require my attention. Dusk-to-dawn sensors turned lights on and off. Self-metering pumps watered plants and kept the fountain’s reservoir full. Timers gave the mechanics a rest each day.

Content that I would never have to answer the voice’s question, I moved on to the next thing that consumed my focus. However, the question continued to echo across the coming days, weeks, and months – for two years.

Over the past couple weeks, it grew so loud that it could no longer be ignored. So I waited until I was totally alone and traveled almost in secret to check on the sacred spot, hoping to prove the concerns were all in my imagination.

That is how this past Saturday morning found me seated in the prayer garden choking back tears. The rock that used to impossibly gurgle living water had stopped flowing. There was no way to tell how long it had sat in disrepair. It was now merely a lifeless slab of stone at the foot of a cross that seemed better suited to cover a tomb than to serve as a reminder of a risen savior.

The open invitation to share time with a living Father had become little more than a somber memorial to a great sacrifice.

It was my fault. I knew that until He released me, that the responsibility to maintain this space was mine. But each time the quiet voice reminded me, I treated it like a salesman knocking on the front door.

I had abandoned my post, and the garden had lost its spark. Now the space sat empty.

It was still long before shops opened, so there were no cars buzzing by and no one walking the sidewalks. Sitting on my favorite bench gave me time to consider the events of the past two weeks, starting with a friend giving me a book (God’s Favorite House by Tommy Tenney).

I wasn’t looking for something to read. I had more jobs lined up than could be counted. I threw it onto the kitchen counter and promptly ignored the tugging to see what was inside. Eventually I felt guilty seeing it stare at me each time I passed, so I threw it into my work backpack where it wouldn’t bother me. But it still called out.

On my flight home from a business trip, the airplane’s wi-fi failed, my phone wouldn’t work, and I was faced with three hours of watching at the seatback in front of me. So I reached in my bag and pulled out the book.

Every page seemed to remind me of the garden and God’s question, “Will you take care of it?” The author explained that I did not understand the importance of the job that I had abandoned. Scriptural markers cautioned me, but I hadn’t wanted to listen. If I had, here is what they would have said.

* Jesus stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). He doesn’t force his way into our lives.

* If we don’t prioritize opening the door for him, then he will move on (Song of Songs 5).

David understood this when he said that he would prefer the seemingly low job of watching the door for God to come through than to enjoy all the riches of this earth.

That is how this hot Saturday morning found me back in the prayer garden. God had given me the chance to open the door for him, but I had lost interest. For minutes that seemed to stretch into eternity, I prayed for forgiveness. I prayed that he would not abandon this place, turning it from sacred into common. I asked for another chance.

The next few hours were spent diagnosing the problem with the water pump and lights before going to Home Depot to find new electrical fittings, researching online for replacement parts, and carefully fitting things together again.

So I sat on my knees at the foot of the cross, my hands busy as I invited his spirit to flow again. I finished putting all of the broken pieces back together. Then with great anticipation, I grasped the plug and pushed it into the outlet, praying that that it would come back to life.

As if in answer to my pleading, the instant the power surged then the water first coughed, then gurgled and began flowing smoothly.

A voice behind me suddently pulled me from my thoughts.

“I wondered how long it would be before you came back.”

Turning around, I noticed an older man with gray hair and a long flowing beard sitting on one of the benches. He said that the fountain had stopped working a couple weeks ago (at the same time my friend gave me the book). He had wondered if anyone would come to fix it or not.

The next half hour was spent chatting with the stranger. He told me about the weather. He wondered where a memorial stone for a fallen friend had disappeared to. He exhaustively reflected on a camp in Minnesota he had visited as a child.

This time I sat patiently, like a doorkeeper should.

The water was flowing again.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Psalm 84:10