This summer
I spent a good chunk of time with my mom in her garden, we planted
all sorts of things; tomatoes, beans, lettuce, zucchinis, pumpkins,
etc. Today while I was watering, I thought about all the things I
learned from tending plants and how that relates to my spiritual life
and I decided to share it with you.
The most
important thing I learned is diligence and discipline.
After you
plant the seeds you have to water everyday, and if it’s really hot
twice daily! This is the Word of God in our lives, without it we
struggle to survive. Occasionally reading it or just getting it from
church is not enough, just like the occasional rain isn’t enough for
the plants.
Plant food
is essential because there just isn’t enough nutrients in the soil by
itself. This is going to church/Bible studies/small groups, just good
fellowship and instruction in general. As people in these outlets
pour into our lives we are encouraged and learn more about God and
ourselves, and it makes it more difficult to be left alone to wither
and die.
is fertilizer. I know, we don’t like to think about this part of it,
but it is indeed needed for the plant to grow. Fertilizer is all the
junk and difficult situations we face in our lives. You see during
those times of difficulty and desperation we have to cling to God to
get through it. The result is that our faith and trust in Him has
grown tremendously.
Then
toward the middle of summer the tomato plants were growing like crazy
and falling over. We had to put long sticks and boards in the ground
to support the tomato branches in order for them to continue growing. In our growth we need this kind of support as well, it’s those
closest to us, mentors, best friends, small group leaders, etc. It’s
those people who pray and intercede for you, correct/rebuke you,
love/encourage you, those that pour the most into your life. They
prop you up so you can continue to grow.
Our bean
plants got as high as our house, yet no beans were growing and then
someone said ‘well you need to cut off the tops so that they will
bear fruit.’ We are just now getting beans. Sometimes we can grow
like crazy in our relationship with God, but we aren’t able to offer
anything to others because we are overstretched or don’t have enough
time to help others. For whatever reason we need to be pruned back so
that we can bear fruit.
We
constantly battled the slugs who especially like to eat our lettuce.
We had to battle other creatures and weeds too, but mostly slugs.
This is THE enemy of our lives and of our destiny, Satan. He tries
his hardest to choke us out, destroy us, to consume us and make us
unusable. Just as we put Sluggo out to protect our plants, we,
in our spiritual lives, need to constantly be defending ourselves
against the attack of the evil one.
Patience
is key. You don’t want to try and pick the fruit before harvest time.
Also, somethings just don’t mature or ripen as fast as others and
it’s best to just wait. If not, you’re robbing yourself of a fully
mature blessing in that area of your life, why would you want to rob
yourself of this?
Finally
someone has to diligently pick the harvest. If there isn’t anyone to
do so the fruit will shrivel up and die and not be used by anyone.
This is when we pour out into other’s lives, giving them knowledge,
wisdom, prayer and encouragement that we’ve gained as fruit in our
live.s
No wonder
the Bible compares us to plants! How’s your garden doing?
