The Salvation Garden

So today I keep having this verse show up.. IN MY FACE..

James 1:19-21 in the Message:

"Post this at all the intersections, dear friends.  Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation garden of your life.”

I have a NIV Life Application Bible and it reads very differently:

"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become to angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.  Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you."

I read this..  I digest it..  I roll it over in my head and through my heart.  Honestly, I love the way the Message speaks but I love the NIV version as well.  What this is saying to me is when I talk too much and listen too little, I am saying to others that my ideas and feelings are much more important.  When I become angry quickly, I am communicating that although I may speak God's love with my mouth, I am not showing God's love with my actions.  I WANT this salvation garden in my life!  I want the Word planted in me and I want it to flourish.

My mind goes back to yesterday afternoon when I was short with one of my daughters because she was grouchy when she got home from school.  Or to this morning when I was not as nice as I should be to my husband because mornings are just stressful and we had too many things going on.  I don't want to be that person.  I want to be the wife/mother/woman that shows evidence of a well tended garden.  I want to be a woman that takes in the Word and lives it and breathes it and my life shows it.  I love it when He gives me Truth that I am specifically needing!