By Rev. Steven P. Gunther
This weekend my wife and I built some raised garden beds in our front yard to grow vegetables this year. As I worked away at putting the beds together, filling them with topsoil, and planting our plants, I was thinking about how gardening reflects our spiritual life. One of my favorite parables is the parable of the growing seed in Mark 4, where Jesus says “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.”
I love this simple analogy because it shows us what our partnership with the Lord is really like. Anyone who has ever grown plants of any kind knows that there is more to it than simply planting seeds and watching things miraculously grow. The soil needs to be prepped. Often the plants need to be started before going into the ground. The young plants need to be watered, protected, and cared for so they can survive and mature. They take continual maintenance and patience all the way until the food is finally ready to be picked. There is a lot of active work, thought, and care that goes into growing plants.
And yet, there is a thread of miraculous growth that does take place. When we aren’t looking, new leaves sprout, blossoms bloom, and vines crawl. While we put a lot of work into caring for the plants, we don’t actually make them grow. In a lot of ways, we are simply giving the plants what they need so that they can grow on their own, and we get to reap the benefits after the fact.
The Lord offers us true ideas which are like seeds. Just like with gardening, we have to do work to prepare the “soil” of our minds and hearts so those ideas can take root. We can water them by applying them to our life and practicing them every day. We can protect them the way we protect plants from predators by watching out for thoughts of selfishness, enmity or hatred toward others. More than anything, we need to have patience and trust that as we do this work, something is growing within us. Even if our lives don’t feel instantly changed overnight by focusing on following the Lord, if we keep tending our garden, we can trust that the Lord is allowing these things to grow in us and one day we will reap the benefits and enjoy the fruits of our labors. Those fruits show up as heavenly peace, happiness, and the fulfillment of living a life of useful service.
So, if you are someone doing gardening this year, I invite you to reflect on how the actions we take in our yards can help us see how we work with the Lord to allow our spiritual garden to grow, bloom, and bear fruit in our hearts.