Hi friend! Welcome to episode 75 of the Tending Your Soul podcast, where we invite God to tend to our souls with the refreshment of His Word like a gardener tends to her garden. I’m Mariel and I’m so glad you’re here.
We have turned the calendar to 2025 and as this new year launches, I know many of us have big hopes for what the year ahead might hold.
My youngest son will graduate college at the end of 2025 so a final launching towards empty nesting is ahead for my family and that’s exciting. Our oldest son got married last fall so this year he and his precious wife will navigate their first year of marriage and that is very exciting.
But as I reflected on last year and sought the Lord for what He has for me in the year ahead, I felt so led towards just SEEKING JESUS. Rather than checking boxes of lofty reading plans or trying to plow through a fast read of Scripture, my soul just craved a slow tending. Like a gardener tending her garden.
I yearn for more of Jesus and so this year I am spending 30 weeks slowly, gently and methodically leaning into the gospel of Mark.
Each day I will be using my TEND method through about 3-5 verses and seeking to see God reveal himself to me through it.
Since 30 weeks might feel overwhelming, I have broken down the weeks into the seasons ahead. So for winter I will spend 12 weeks leaning into chapter 1-7.
Each Tuesday you can find me here on the podcast as I share what the Lord is teaching me as I open a new week of TENDing through the verses. I would love for you to join me and follow along in your own tending time with the Lord too!! If you want the guidance of the reading plan and downloadable journal I use you can find that at marieldavenport.com/shop. OR you can hop over on marieldavenport.substack.com and join me in the posts’ comments and videos and even zoom gatherings we will have over there for those interested in going deeper and sharing what God is teaching you!
So for today, lean in with me as we open up the gospel of Mark together.
Now when I begin a new book of the bible, I want to be sure to have background and context. My favorite go to for that are tools like the ESV study bible introduction notes or watching the overview video at bibleproject.com.
So check that out if you have not already!
As we start the TEND method with the acronym TEND, we begin with T for take time to pray. So pray with me:
Lord, we thank you that you are the master gardener of our souls. Thank you for the refreshment of your word that bears fruit within us. Would you press the seed of your word into the soil of our hearts today that we might begin to bear fruit for your glory? Amen.
Then in the TEND method we move to E which is examine the Scripture. This is where I typically write out the verses from my Bible into my journal in order to see them slowly and carefully paying attention to what is happening in the scene.
Today we are looking at Mark 1:1-3. So let’s look at those verses together.
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of the one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
As we consider these verses we want to pay attention to the details. Mark opens this with explaining that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus happens as it is foretold hundreds of years before by the prophet Isaiah.
When we come to the N in TEND we are Noticing the lessons and the first lesson we are looking for is “what is this teaching about God?”
So in these verses we see that Jesus is the Son of God and God fulfills the prophesy He foretells. We see that the gospel of Jesus began far before the birth of Jesus because Jesus is God and God is eternal.
When we have noticed what is being taught about God, then we look to is there a sin, promise, action, command or example in the verses we are Tending through.
This is not application to our lives yet, but rather it is to seek out what the original author was getting across to his original audience. Mark is opening his retelling of the life of Jesus with the prophesy that foretold it to teach his audience that God fulfills what he promises. Also we see that the messenger of God was to prepare the way of the Lord and called out to God’s people to do likewise.
In seeing the context here in the following verses, we know that the way of the Lord was prepared with repentance. Repentance is agreeing with God about our sin. When we acknowledge our sin before God and own up to Him that it is not pleasing to Him (not that WE are not pleasing but that the sin within us is rebellion against God), then He extends forgiveness, as we see in verse 4.
Jesus was the payment for our sin so we would have this access of repentance to our holy and perfect God. And that is the gospel Mark is unpacking for us.
So as we move to the D in TEND that stands for Do what it says, we are then to respond to the lesson we have seen here.
If the lesson then is we are to prepare the way of the Lord’s work in us through repentance, then how today do I need to prepare the way for the Lord’s work in my own heart? Obviously, it is through repentance.
As I considered this, I asked the Lord to show me what sins of my heart I need to repent of and agree with Him are sins that grieve His heart. I journaled my thoughts to the Lord and shared with Him about anger and bitterness that can take root in my heart if I don’t turn from my own self justifications and turn to Him. Naming our sin before Him enables us to see what we have and are continually being forgiven for. It helps us acknowledge our need for Jesus.
So what about you friend?
What might you need to turn from in your own heart? How might you need to prepare for the work God is desiring to do in and through you this year?
Repent and simply agree with God that it is sin. You and I are not expected to clean up our sin or even change our own hearts. We are invited to draw near through agreeing with God that it is sin, naming that sin and cooperating with the grace He pours out in us to enable us to walk differently out of the knowledge that we are so loved, graced and forgiven.
I hope you will join me at marieldvenport.substack.com as we continue this conversation around the gospel of Mark. And be sure to download your own Tending through Mark PDF at marieldavenport.com. If you are new to the TEND method I have a free download for you at marieldavenport.com/start.
All the links are in the show notes for you!
And as always, keep tending your soul!
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