Today is the day I have set aside to pull out my garden. It signals the end of the planting year and a promise of cooler days to come. I enjoy fall for that very reason...all the work you've put into caring for the garden and the flowers and the lawn and the trees (yes I want it to be over) gets to take a rest under a thick blanket of snow for the winter.
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Hubby bought me this lovely watering can early in the Spring and it's bright orange color infused me with excitement for the coming growing season. Yes...a watering can. I know, small minds and all that. I was inspired by thoughts of all the lovely veggies I would be harvesting in the fall. My garden boxes tend to lose moisture quickly so the watering can was perfect and well, cute.
My garden grew surprising well this year as I had to battle our cat looking for a ready-made litter box, our dog being half cousin to a deer and grazing on all the tender new shoots popping out of the ground and momma barn swallows who decided I was an enemy that needed to be annihilated.
I was utterly amazed that from some tiny seeds came 3 five gallon pails of cucumbers! It got me thinking about about how the seeds we plant turn into something other than what the seeds looked like when first stuck into the ground! How does a small seed turn into a large cucumber? It starts off all dried out and crinkled up but with the proper growing conditions it flourishes into something juicy and satisfying.
Harvest only happens because you've sown something into fertile soil. That goes for fruit bearing (or veggies) or weeds. Fruit bearing seeds we take really good care of right? First of all we deliberately plant them, then water them, cultivate around them to rid their tender roots of weeds, stand vigil over them in order to shield them from preying pests.
Weed seeds seem to float in on the wind. They also love good cultivated soil and seem to grow more quickly than their counterparts. Somehow they are untouched by other roots and in fact choke out the carefully seeded plants, spreading a mass of death over everything in their path. If not dealt with quickly and forcibly removed, the good harvest you hoped for will never materialize and you will be left in the fall filling your wheelbarrow with a heap of junk for the burn pile or garbage disposal.
I was reminded in Matthew 13:20 where it talks about how something as small as a mustard seed can grow into a large tree. The tree looks nothing like the seed that was planted...when it matures it becomes something much larger and overpowering with the ability to have a significant affect on all that stands nearby. The reality, whether we like it or not, remains...what we sow we will harvest either for good or bad, fruits and veggies or weeds.
When we plant seeds of faith, they too grow. Sometimes they have started out so small that you may even need a microscope to see them. But what happens when we plant something and nurture it? IT GROWS! So the challenge to myself and to you today is to ensure that we are nurturing seeds of faith that we want to grow. Let's yank out all the weed seeds of fear, anger, bitterness and so on that seem to have embedded themselves in our lives and are choking out our freedom. Matthew 17:20 talks about faith having the ability to move mountains and believe me, no weed infested "faith garden" is going to make that happen.
Let's go and get some dirt under our fingernails!!
