GARDENING WITH PATIENCE

I was getting ready to go outside to do all my ‘dirty work’ and gardening in the yard. After two weeks of busyness and several days of heavy rain I looked up from my coffee and devotions and noticed the sun was finally breaking through a layer of thick gray cloud over central Massachusetts.

“Thank you, Lord! I have a long way to go to restoring the beauty in my own backyard!”

Tying the laces of my sneakers and pulling on a pair of leather work gloves, I started thinking about how much yard work mirrors spiritual life. Yes, there is some dirty work, perhaps unforgiveness, hurts and pains to weed out and issues to clean up, but GOD is a great gardener. He fertilizes and He also prunes. He plants and he also uproots. A time for every purpose under heaven.

I went out into the hot sun and viewed the garden, now overrun with weeds. If there’s one place that illustrates the point of how God does His work in our lives, it’s a garden. There we see plainly that it’s not about the instant results we crave. It isn’t just the surface feel-good colors or praise, but it all starts in the quiet unseen soil of the deepest places of the heart.

If we want a flourishing garden of colorful fruit and fragrant herbs, we might have to do some sweaty weeding first or even shovel a pile of manure to fertilize the dormant ground. We may have to haul wheel barrels of debris or do some heavy lifting first. Maybe we need to do a little fence building to keep groundhogs from stealing our produce.

You get the picture. If we want to reap, we will sow in patience. We may have to deal with heaps of crap or lift some heavy burdens before we get to the joyous Thanksgiving harvest.

The time of feasting is already scheduled, but we have to wait patiently for that glorious celebration.  Then we will see what blossoms. Let's pray the fragrance of our lives spreads the knowledge of Christ and brings many more to the Father's table.

In the meantime, we stink.