So I would like to think of myself as a gardener,
I mean this is my third year having a garden after all...
It all started the summer of 2017. It was our first summer back at the homeplace and we found out the previous fall that Joseph LOVES pumpkins; I mean everything about them. He thinks they are the most amazing thing ever! So I had the bright idea to plant a garden (of pumpkins) the next summer.
It was a lot of work, but oh how Joseph looked forward to going to the garden every day. I may have cried when the season changed and the garden quit producing. So many memories made. So much weeding. So much raking, So much watering, fertilizing and hoeing and HARVESTING.
The next year (year #2 for us), we were experts. We had learned what not to do the year before and so we planned much better and, of course, we planted a much bigger garden...
So. Much. Watering. So. Much. Weeding.
Last year it was very dry in the middle of the summer, which is not unusual for North Carolina. However, closer to harvest time it rained, and rained, and rained some more. This is also not unusual due to the fall being hurricane season and we live near the coast.
I’m telling you the history of our gardens because the backstory is important.
I think it had been about 7 days since we had been able to go out and tend the garden..... and it looked like it. I have never seen such a grown up mess. Chaos. The weeds were overtaking everything.
This year, our third year, I had a genius idea.
We should lay heavy duty plastic down and plant our garden in the plastic, just like we did the flowers for the landscaping in our front yard.
Brilliant, I thought. Absolutely brilliant.
This would take care of the endless weeding. This would make our tending easier. This. We had figured it out, a shortcut.
We are two weeks into July and let me share with you how wonderful this shortcut is working for us.
It’s not. I have almost pulled up all the plastic.
At first, it was great. It kept the weeds down, but then I noticed weeds coming up through the holes we planted in, and they weren’t small weeds. Weeds grow towards the light. They grow towards the place where they will be given life (spiritual application coming).
Even that wasn’t so bad, I could pull the weeds out of the small holes, but I noticed our pumpkin VINES were not doing well at all. They were pitiful. Even with fertilizer and being watered twice a day they were not as hearty as they had been in our previous gardens.
I was in the garden one evening and finally decided I should ask someone smarter than me what was going on, so I asked Holy Spirit, and He showed me.
How did I not think of this? Why didn’t I see this coming?
Pumpkin vines put down roots all along the vine to make it sturdy and to increase its intake of nutrients to be able to produce large, healthy fruit.
He, in His ever so gentle way, said,
People do this all the time. There are very few shortcuts that actually work.
I looked at the dried up vines and then I pulled back a piece of plastic to find weeds, weeds and more weeds. The plastic hadn’t prevented the weeds from growing, it had just kept them hidden from me. Now there was real tending that had to happen. No more hiding, no more covering it up.
In my effort to reduce the amount of time and energy required to have a garden (and a harvest), I had created more work... AND delayed my harvest.
I saw so many spiritual applications to my garden failure.
Let’s go through this:
I planted in the plastic because I didn’t want to weed (I know, there are some plants that do fine in plastic, pumpkins are not one of those plants).
Weeds will overtake the plants, if left unchecked. They also take valuable nutrients from the soil away from the plants.
The plastic only covered. The weeds lay hidden under my shortcut. Waiting and growing.
I planted my pumpkin vines on top of the plastic. While it was supposed to kill the weeds, it was actually killing the vine.
My covering up what required work was costing me my harvest.
There is no shortcut to the harvest. No easy way to see the supernatural in our lives. It’s a constant battle between what we see and what God has promised.
This requires something of us. It requires us to rid ourselves of all the “weeds” that would choke our faith. Habits within ourselves that take valuable nutrients that we desperately need. Covering the weeds has cost me more time than just putting in the effort to weed a little every day because I am having to undo what I did in order to redo it correctly.
Weeds are time wasters and energy zappers. They distract us from what should be holding our attention.
For instance: I should have pondered how to strengthen the vines and plants rather than how do I get out of weeding my garden.
The faith walk takes time. It takes effort. It requires a dying to ourselves so that He can grow.
There are things that He asks us to get out of our lives. Covering them up is never a good idea. It’s much easier to get a weed when it’s small. The bigger it gets, the more established the roots, the stronger they are and the more resistance there is to pull it.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t cover over the weeds. Leave the soil of your heart exposed so that Holy Spirit can cultivate it and show you weeds that are beginning to grow.
When the soil is exposed, the vines can put down roots, gather nutrients and do what the seed was intended to do- produce a harvest.
That’s why we have a garden anyway, right? For enjoying the harvest?