Shortly after moving back to Newnan, my wife and I bought our first house. You could still see where the previous owners had a garden, though, it had long since grown over. Given the setting and circumstances of settling in, it seemed only fitting to complete the domestication process by planting a garden.
I started by marking off the area in which to plant and started digging. With a general idea of what to expect and wanted results, I dug in. It got dirty. It got tiresome. It was a slow process. Alison, my wife, came out at one point that I was on my knees and planting tomatoes. “Do you know what you’re doing?”, she asked. “Nope. Just doing what I was taught as a kid.” Little did I know the lessons I would learn by applying what I had heard as a child.
What started out as side project quickly turned into a goal. That goal? Harvest. Honestly, there were alot of times that I got more joy out of watching Mrs. Smith from down the street harvesting crops until she needed help walking back to her car. She loved it. I loved it. We shared in the process. I would grow, she would pick and she would preserve what she was given. Often times she brought it back. Often times she would give it away.
Then came a hard lesson. There were the obvious obstacles; weeds, rocks, bugs, etc.. Nothing prepared me for the rainy season. Not the occasional rain, but one of those never ending, ground saturating, “waiting for Noah to paddle by any moment” seasons. It was unsettling to see my plants, my babies dying. They weren’t prepared. What did I do wrong? Did I not pull enough weeds? Was there not enough nutrients?
Just below the topsoil lies a hard layer of dirt. If the rainy season brings more than the topsoil can process or distribute, it puddles. If that puddle doesn’t subside soon, the crop drowns. It stagnates and rots. However, if you put in the necessary work, if you take the time to really prepare the soil and bust through that hard ground, your crop is better prepared to withstand the rainy season yield a longer, more bountiful harvest.
How many “fair weather Christians” have started out strong only to wither at the first hint of a storm? Are we, as the body of Christ, taking the time to prepare our own little spiritual garden to withstand the onslaught of spiritual warfare about to happen? Are they dug in? Are they fortified with Truth? Are they loved so much that, even when surrounded by weeds of sin, they stand tall in honor of the Son?
It’s time to dig deep, Christians.
I started by marking off the area in which to plant and started digging. With a general idea of what to expect and wanted results, I dug in. It got dirty. It got tiresome. It was a slow process. Alison, my wife, came out at one point that I was on my knees and planting tomatoes. “Do you know what you’re doing?”, she asked. “Nope. Just doing what I was taught as a kid.” Little did I know the lessons I would learn by applying what I had heard as a child.
What started out as side project quickly turned into a goal. That goal? Harvest. Honestly, there were alot of times that I got more joy out of watching Mrs. Smith from down the street harvesting crops until she needed help walking back to her car. She loved it. I loved it. We shared in the process. I would grow, she would pick and she would preserve what she was given. Often times she brought it back. Often times she would give it away.
Then came a hard lesson. There were the obvious obstacles; weeds, rocks, bugs, etc.. Nothing prepared me for the rainy season. Not the occasional rain, but one of those never ending, ground saturating, “waiting for Noah to paddle by any moment” seasons. It was unsettling to see my plants, my babies dying. They weren’t prepared. What did I do wrong? Did I not pull enough weeds? Was there not enough nutrients?
Just below the topsoil lies a hard layer of dirt. If the rainy season brings more than the topsoil can process or distribute, it puddles. If that puddle doesn’t subside soon, the crop drowns. It stagnates and rots. However, if you put in the necessary work, if you take the time to really prepare the soil and bust through that hard ground, your crop is better prepared to withstand the rainy season yield a longer, more bountiful harvest.
How many “fair weather Christians” have started out strong only to wither at the first hint of a storm? Are we, as the body of Christ, taking the time to prepare our own little spiritual garden to withstand the onslaught of spiritual warfare about to happen? Are they dug in? Are they fortified with Truth? Are they loved so much that, even when surrounded by weeds of sin, they stand tall in honor of the Son?
It’s time to dig deep, Christians.
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