Several years ago I took up gardening. I referred to that summer as “the season God preached to me through plants.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. Jesus described the Kingdom of God as a seed, and scripture is full of agricultural metaphors. Some of the most redemptive work I have experienced in cities has revolved around urban gardens. I don’t remember much of the produce we ate that summer, but I’ll never forget the sermon God crafted that summer.
Due to busyness and the ever-present demands of diapers and carpooling I have taken a five year hiatus from gardening. This past year I scoped out an unused plot on the side of our home to start a garden. Doors also opened to launch a garden at our neighborhood elementary school where my kids attend. For the past few months I’ve been scrubbing soil from under my nails and starting my day watering the garden.
I talk about the resurgence of gardening in my book Staying is the new Going. Gardens and farmers markets seem to be popping up everywhere. In the book I outline four necessities of joining the cultivation process.
Participation. Gardening looks easy, dreamy and hip when you’re watching others harvest their vegetables. Composting, tilling soil, planting seeds, and weeding are a different story. They aren’t exactly leisure activities. Cultivation of any kind requires hard work that can bring great satisfaction.
Partnership. True gardeners realize without sun and water they’ll have no crops. Solitary gardening isn’t much fun and won’t fill the harvest basket.
Patience. If you ask most urban and suburban kids today, “Where do your fruits and vegetables come from?” they will likely tell you, “the grocery store.” We go to the store and they’re ready. We feel inconvenienced just waiting in the check-out line! There is no remedy for patience in gardening.
Produce. We aren’t just gardening for the fun of it; we want to harvest veggies! Good trees and plants bear good fruit (Matthew 7:18). There is nothing like the satisfaction of eating the veggies that slowly developed over the years.
God reinforced these four principles in the last five months and He preached fresh sermon to me as I planned, hauled, weeded, tended and watered the gardens under my care. Here is an outline.
We waste a lot of water on dying plants. When I see a struggling plant and a healthy plant side by side I nearly always water the dying one. I do the same thing in my life. Instead of watering the things that are flourishing in my life I often put my best effort toward the things that are struggling. We often put our best effort into trying to save and salvage instead of watering the areas God is bringing the increase.
Patience yields expectation. Each day as I water I get more excited about what the result will be. I can’t wait to see how big the cucumbers, squash, carrots and radishes will get! Waiting is hard, but it builds faith and expectation in us that simply can’t be formed in the moment.
The biggest leaves don’t produce the biggest fruit. My plants deceived me this summer. One plant sprang up quickly and developed huge leaves that overtook a whole corner of my garden, but they have barely produced any veggies. There are two other kinds plants that are teeny, but they produced veggies that were almost the size of the plant. We love to predict what spiritual fruit people will produce by the externals, but the Kingdom of God doesn’t work that way. The microscopic mustard seed grows into a huge tree. Fruit is hard to predict, so our time is better spent preoccupied with obedience to God.
The garden is older than we think. Many would deem these two gardens a success for first year gardens. The truth is I have been composting and building rich soil for three years now. We are often tempted to think things are an overnight success, but God has been at work for a long time building rich spiritual soil in and around us. God has been at work long before you have been.
“Garden envy” will kill your joy. I occasionally peek over the fence to see how the garden is doing next door. That never goes well. I get jealous and wonder, “how are they getting those results!” How often do we do this with other churches or individuals! “God is doing huge things over there, but what about me? Why can’t our church see that kind of growth?” We do our faithful work, but God ultimately brings the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6).
What sermon is God writing in your life?