Dealing with weeds is a never ending battle in the garden. Even the straw I covered my weed cloth with is growing grass. I can pull these weeds easily, because their roots are not in the ground, but they still divert water from the plants and, therefore, must go.

There is a time and place for grass, but it is not today in my garden.

Harder to pull are those weeds that are growing tucked up close to the plant, rooted in the soil with the plant. Sometimes, I can’t pull those weeds because doing so would damage the plant.

And what is a weed, really? By definition, a weed is just a plant growing where you don’t want it to grow. There’s nothing inherently bad about the plant; it is just growing where I don’t want it to grow. Some “weeds,” like dandelions, are quite beneficial.

So, while I sometimes think of weeds as “sin,” they are more analogous to distractions. This is the analogy Jesus made.

As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. Luke 8:14

There is nothing inherently bad about the cares and riches and pleasures of life, just as there is nothing inherently bad about any plant, until they choke off the production of spiritual fruit in my life. I would even argue that there is a time and place for the cares and riches and pleasures of life, but they need to be secondary to God.

A garden is a space set aside, a weed-free place dedicated to the growth of fruit. My personal devotional time is also a space set aside, a concern free time dedicated to growing in the likeness of Christ.

Because we need to be alert to the cares of the world, we need to tend to our business, and we are called to enjoy the world. But these things are not to take top priority in our lives.

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:31-32

I am amazed, in this land of plenty, how much of my time and money I dedicate to what I eat and drink and what I wear. Those weeds! I confess I let them grow up in my garden and I let them grow up in my life. I wonder what it would look like if I truly subjugated my earthly desires to God’s righteous ones, if I had a have a weed-free garden?

I have a sense that I will never know, at least not this side of heaven. I just have to go out regularly and weed the garden. I have to examine my garden and my life regularly and look for weeds. What concerns for wealth or image or pleasure are encroaching on my love of God? Where am I putting my wishes above the needs of others? Where am I letting those weeds grow up, and why?

Am I just too lazy to pull them, too comfortable where I am? Is that inertia whispering in my ear that God won’t really care if I let the weeds grow? God cares. He wants to produce beautiful fruit in my life, fruit that I cannot produce on my own. All He asks is that I give Him the time and space to produce it.

So today, I will go out to the garden and pull some weeds. It’s a good day in the garden.

I hope you are enjoying my garden as well. I appreciate your sharing this space with me and hope you invite some friends to join us.

Betsy

He has given us the power to become Children of God. John 1:12

I have to admit this: I don’t like to wait. I don’t even like to shop. If I need something, I get it. No reason to waste time thinking about it forever.

But that doesn’t work in the garden.

In the garden, I have to wait. I have to wait for the plants to grow. I have to wait for the fruit to appear. I have to wait for the fruit to grow and ripen. No amount of wishing or impatience on my part changes that.

Every day, I walk in the garden. I check on the growth, make sure they are getting enough water, correct and support the growth as needed, watch and wait. And wait.

The tomatoes are there. They are large and green. And still green. I wonder if impatience led to fried green tomatoes.

Waiting. It’s possibly the hardest thing to do, especially for us in the here and now. If we were servants, we would have to wait for our master’s command. If we lived in the millennia before digital communications, we would have to wait for information to arrive and for communications to be returned. If we lived in a time of austerity, we would have to wait to until something was available that we could afford. As it is, we live in a world besot with self determination, going for it, instant communication, immediate gratification, easy credit and over abundance.

Maybe waiting is difficult for you as well.

Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27:14

If you read the Old Testament, waiting was never something that people found easy. Sarah couldn’t wait for Isaac’s birth, but had her servant conceive Ishmael; their descendants are still fighting. The Hebrews in the desert couldn’t wait for Moses to return, so they created a molten calf to lead them. They were impatient to get to the promised land. There are many instances of God asking His people to wait, and many instances of God’s people complaining about having to wait.

How long, O Lord? (Psalm 119:81, Psalm 13:1, Habakkuk 1:2, Psalm 71:12, Psalm 89:46)

But in a garden, you must wait; work while you wait for sure, but wait.

There is no point in complaining or fretting or getting anxious about how long it is taking the plant to mature. It just takes time. I just have to wait.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6.

What a lesson for life. Some things take time.

It takes time for those green tomatoes to turn red. Sometimes it takes time for me to forgive someone. It has taken a lot of time for me to not become angry when someone cuts in front of me. It may take time before God fulfills His promise to you. In the meantime, God calls us to have faith and wait.

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. James 5:7

So, be patient. Wait on the Lord. He is at work, even if we can’t see it. Have faith.

Fear not. Fret not. When the time is right, the plant will grow and bear fruit. When the time is right, the fruit will be ready.

And the good news is that, since patience is a fruit of the Spirit, your ability to wait for God to accomplish His plans is evidence of His fruit ripening in your life.

Take a deep breath, my friend, and enjoy your summer.

Betsy

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.” John 9:3

I had my first tomato sandwich yesterday – delicious! There were several more tomatoes on the vine; I was so looking forward to picking, eating and sharing them.

This morning, they are all gone. Every one of them. Robbed. My guess is that whatever took them got under the bird netting and up and over the fence; probably a squirrel. Large enough to carry them off, small enough to not tear the cloth. I found a half eaten red tomato in the yard; I found no green ones.

Fortunately, I have planted indeterminate tomatoes, and I hope I will get new blossoms, new tomatoes. For now, the problem is preventing the predators from returning. I need to secure the netting and check my fence for openings. I need to search my garden for how the squirrel got through and correct the problem.

What I don’t need to do is get all upset about the lost tomatoes. It is in the squirrel’s nature to test any obstacles in its way. And the purpose of a test is to show us what we have mastered and where we need to improve. My netting is protecting the garden from the birds, but needs some work to withstand the squirrels.

Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless, indeed, you fail the test! 2 Corinthians 13:5

I had a dustup with a friend. It has exposed a gap in my spiritual netting. I am too busy justifying my actions to feel remorse, too offended to feel compassion, too self-righteous to humble myself. I have let the thief come in the night and rob me of the fruit of the Spirit. What I need to do is search myself and discover how I let that happen. Where are the gaps in the fence, the open spaces in the netting? How was I so easily robbed? I need to correct the problem.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

What I don’t need to do is dwell on the problem, stress over it, fixate on it. More important than the lost tomatoes is the realization that I need to fix my netting. More important than the dustup is the realization that I need to realign myself with God.

It is hard to let the past go. It is a challenge to not relive the mistakes we’ve made, the wounds we have inflicted, the wounds inflicted upon us. Dwelling on past hurts can easily consume our day. But the past does not need to determine who we are. Even the recent past. Whatever I did wrong yesterday, and I am sure there was plenty, does not mandate what my actions today will be.

Today is a new day.

I will water my garden and try again to protect it from robbers and thieves.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

God has given me this new day, and the promise of new blossoms. God has shown me I cannot manifest His fruit by my own abilities. I need God, and I need to be vigilant against my baser self or evil forces robbing me of the Spirit’s fruit.

Fortunately, God has also given me the ability to do just that.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. John 1:12

So I will not let the tomato robber end my garden. I will not let the peace robber end my spiritual journey. These are setbacks and disappointments; these are tests I have failed. But God has given me faith, and hope, and love. Thank You Lord!

Go in peace, dear friend; go in the peace of God.

Betsy

The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. John 14:12

We’ve had record heat this year for June, weeks of temperatures in the upper 90’s. My pepper plants are loving it. I can’t remember the last time I have had peppers in June, although it was probably ten years ago when we had a similar early heat wave. Usually I have to wait until July.

One year, we had to wait until August. We had had a very cool summer. It was mid-July and our pepper plants still had no fruit at all. We were worried. Was something wrong?

Nick talked to the man at the Agricultural center, and he explained that pepper plants need to be stressed to bear fruit. Heat is the main stressor for most plants. Although stressing the plant artificially was an option, he suggested just waiting; it was bound to get hot at some point. And, of course, it did.

Because as unpredictable as the weather can be year to year, month to month or day to day, we know there will be periods of “unseasonable” temperatures when it is too hot or too cold. There will be excessive rainfall and periods of drought. There will be storms. We just don’t know when.

As humans, we strive to insulate ourselves from these unpleasant situations. We have built ourselves protective homes; heating and a/c to moderate the temperature; comfy beds and chairs; TVs, PCs, i10s – escape on demand. But my garden is not that protected. My plants are dealing with the weather head on.

And the peppers are thriving.

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

Maybe we only produce fruit when we are “stressed,” when we are facing trials. Of course, it takes much less heat to stress a tomato plant than it does to stress a pepper plant, but it still takes some.

And who knows if my pepper plants are really “loving” this heat? They may not enjoy the stressful situation that encourages their fruit production. They may even resent being put in such a situation. But their fruit is a beautiful thing.

… knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. Romans 5:3-5

Do I love being in the situations that make me bear fruit? Can I show patience if I am never frustrated? Am I showing love and kindness if I only spend time with people I like? Will I bear the fruit of gentleness if nothing angers me?

Maybe we, like the plants, need some stress, need the heat of the summer to bear our fruit.

Maybe that heat reveals if we are bearing the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of our own selfish desires.

How am I reacting to the stress, to the heat? Because this has already been a very hot summer. This has already been a very stressful summer. And not just for my garden.

Just turn on the news for 15 minutes.

Am I bearing fruit? Am I bearing the Spirit’s fruit? Are you?

As a gardener, I look forward to the heat of the summer. The heat makes the plants produce the fruit I want.

I admit I rarely look forward to the heat and stress in my life. I rarely “consider it joy.” And yet, if it makes me produce that fruit, isn’t it a good thing?

And don’t forget that in order to survive and thrive in high heat, plants need even more water; and we need even more prayer.

Perhaps I will learn to welcome the situations which cause me to bear fruit, as I welcome the heat of summer.

My prayer is that you and I will bear much holy fruit this summer. Thank you for sharing your time with me.

Betsy

For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you. Luke 17:21