I’ve been thinking a lot about growth lately, and what the entire process looks like from start to finish. Beautifully enough, the Lord gave me a really cool opportunity to experience it tangibly this week while tending to thousands of tomato plants during ministry at Dunamis.
Most of the time, our jobs were to pull weeds out from around the plants, take off the dead leaves and put them outside in a giant hole, water the tomato plants, or do what was called “chuponing.” If you’ve got a green thumb, you may know the English term for this being “removing the suckers,” which shoot from in between the stem and branches, breaking off to make more plants. (I had to do a little research on this, and found many articles about how this isn’t necessary if you’re using a tomato cage for your plants. However, in the greenhouse, all the tomato plants were supported by singular strings to make them tall and orderly, in case you were planning on fact checking me.) We never ran out of work there, I learned, because setting up the best environment for growth takes consistent time and effort!
While tediously pulling weeds, I noticed how difficult it was to get them up from the roots. It took twice as much effort and got my hands twice as dirty. However, isn’t the purpose of pulling them up to stop them from coming back? Every now and then I would look back at the part of the row I had finished behind me, and it always seemed like I had made hardly any progress. Why did it take so long? But then I thought, isn’t it worth it to take the time to clear out the little things that were trying to steal the nutrients from the plants?
The dead leaves seemed to be constantly popping up out of nowhere. One day, every single tomato plant had been picked free of them, but the next day, there were more. What was the point of taking them away, if it seemed like a never ending job? Bagging up all the unwanted parts and carrying them up the steep hill outside to the dumping pile was work, too. I couldn’t make that trip (at 11,000 feet) without being out of breath by the end of it. Was it really necessary to dispose of all the yuckiness?
Then came the watering. Since the greenhouse was on a giant hill, this always made for a big flooded mess. Dirt became mud on every row and all the other jobs got a whole lot messier. But it’s not possible to have life without water, is it? Or life without mess?
Finally, chuponing. Identifying the life-sucking things and pulling them off was such a challenge at first. How am I, far from a gardener, supposed to know what to keep and what to pull? What if I accidentally miss some or take out what was good? It started with asking the gardeners, who had done it hundreds of times, to help. And then, by the end, I had practiced so many times, I probably would have been able to do it with my eyes closed (not really, but it did become like second nature).
In the greenhouse, cultivating and tending to the soil and the plants takes time, hard work, and the willingness to walk into and through the mess. It’s the same for our lives, too, but that’s what it takes to ensure that the best fruit is produced. In John 15, it talks all about this. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and God the Father is the Gardener. Our purpose is to bear fruit, but any part of us that doesn’t bear fruit will be taken away. We have to be willing to pull up the circumstances in life that get in the way of us achieving our purpose by the roots, even if it’s hard and messy. That means digging deep and taking all the time we need. We’ve also got to constantly be finding the dead leaves and lies that are clinging to us and hindering our growth and disposing of them, day by day, even if the walk up the hill is long and tiresome. We have to place ourselves under the well of living water given to us from the Lord, even if at times it seems like things only get more complicated and messy when that’s our daily priority. Finally, we’ve got to learn to look at ourselves, with the help of the Father, to see what things are sucking the life out of us, and get rid of them. What good is it to have sprouts shooting out far and wide into things down on earth, but to be distant from above? As we grow taller, we become more like Christ and can be used by the Lord to further bring heaven on earth.
He takes nothing but a little bit of a dirt and a teeny tiny seed, and He brings forth beauty out of the mess. Right now, the soil of my soul is being tended, and honestly, it’s quite messy, but it’s also so beautiful. Our gentle and caring Gardener wants to invite you, too, into this beautiful life of growth with Him. Are you willing to let Him tend the soil of your soul?
All my heart,
Abby
