Month: September 2026

Now is the Time

The January ice storm had killed my previous arborvitae, which had grown too tall for my front garden anyway. These were planted in late spring, which seemed like a good time to plant new ones, and there was an abundance of them at the garden store. Apparently, though, late spring is not the best time to plant arborvitae; early fall is.

Like planting garlic in the late fall, the idea of planting trees in the fall feels a little unwise. Aren’t we headed into winter when things die? According to experts, though, it is the shock of warmer temperatures which threaten the plant. In duress, early spring is okay, but my poor new plants had faced drought and extreme temperatures and had not survived.

Now is the time to replace my dead arborvitae with new ones. The preferred window for planting is short and almost over. The time to plant is now.

It’s got me thinking about other things that seem to have time constraints on them. I remember the Israelites who missed their first opportunity to enter the promised land. I remember Esther who waited for the second dinner to make her request, not even knowing how God was preparing the king’s heart and mind. These stories remind me that timing matters, and we need to follow God’s timing, not our own.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6.

I had an old family piano in need of repair that I decided to get rid of. For some reason, I couldn’t pull the trigger; I couldn’t let go. For a year, I looked at that piano and felt, ‘not today.’ Then one morning, it was time. I put an ad online and got an immediate response. A small church had voted the night before to allocate exactly the amount it would take to get my piano in working order. God’s timing. They came and picked it up that afternoon.

Sometimes we need to act at once. Sometimes we need to wait. God knows when the time is right and if we stay in connection with Him, He will let us know as well. It’s scary. I don’t want to miss an opportunity; I don’t want to mess it up by acting too quickly. My own knowledge is so limited.

Fortunately, God has sent us the Holy Spirit to guide our steps, a good shepherd to lead His sheep. Often, He gives us second chances, and sometimes third and fourth chances! I can replant my arborvitae. It took forty years, but the Israelites did enter the promised land.

I can imagine few things worse than spending eternity realizing I had missed my opportunity to get to know God. We have so much to be thankful for on this earth, so much beauty, so many relationships. God wants to connect with us and gives us many opportunities to get to know Him. I don’t want to miss a one. I don’t want to have any regrets that I acted too quickly or too slowly. That’s probably an unreasonable expectation, but I will not miss the opportunity to follow Him today.

For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time, see now is the day of salvation! 2 Corinthians 6:2.

My landscapers are here with my new arborvitae. Now is the time.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Armchair Quarterback

It’s football time!

Beyond watching the game, many of us also coach the players from our dens. Throw the ball! Run! Go for it! As if we know more about the situation then those athletes and coaches who have played and studied the game for years. As if we were physically or mentally capable of doing what they are doing. As if we were willing to dedicate that much of our life to this game. Because let’s face it, I am not. I do not have the skill set or raw talent they have. I have not spent hours on training and physical conditioning. I have not learned the nuances of my teammates or my opponents. I don’t know all the different options available and what determines which plays are carried out when. I have not immersed myself in strategy and analytics. So, what qualifies me to criticize these players and coaches who have?

And if that is true in football, it has become a national obsession with politics. I am completely unqualified and incapable of running for President, being elected President, or governing as President. My guess is that that is true for you as well. And yet, without being to understand the complexities of the job, we routinely criticize whoever holds that position. As if we could do a better job. As if meeting my expectations of leadership were the President’s objective, as if he should value my opinions at all. What hubris!

I fear we do this with God as well sometimes. We question His motives, His presence, His sovereignty. We think He doesn’t love us when we don’t get our way. We stomp our feet like an indignant three-year-old and scream. And when we have finished with our fit, God answers.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? Job 38:4-7.

That is not to say that we should stop asking questions, stop trying to learn more. If we care about football, we should learn the rules, the strategies, and the physical demands of the game. If nothing else, it helps us realize how difficult their job really is. Asking questions and learning the answer may help us understand why the players we were yelling at from our couches did not throw or run or go for it.

And we certainly should care about how our leaders govern us. If there are issues that are important to us, we should be all means get involved in advocating for those issues, whatever they may be. But for the past fifty years, we have made a pastime of hating our President. No matter what our President is doing, we criticize his decisions and how they are made. As if we could do better.

And we should certainly bring our questions to God. We should study and read and learn and pray and worship and stomp our feet occasionally. From Abraham to Nicodemus, God welcomes our questions, our arguments, our wrestling. He wants us to ask because He wants us to get to know Him better.

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3.

Sometimes a question is criticism and sometimes it is a pathway to deeper understanding. Let’s stop asking questions like we already know the right answer. Let’s admit that we are not trained athletes or successful politicians. Let’s admit that we are not God and resist the urge to criticize Him. Instead, let us bring all things to Him in prayer.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Roots

A few years ago, a best-selling Christian author told a story about a tree that had fallen in her yard.

She had installed an underground irrigation system to keep her grass and trees alive. It worked, but the system had encouraged the tree to send its roots out laterally through out the yard just under the water source. While the tree’s shallow roots brought ample water, when the storm came, the tree was unable to stay standing. Its roots were too shallow. To stay upright, the tree needed to develop deeper roots.

The speaker left the story there. We need to develop deeper roots to withstand the storms that life will certainly bring.

The story has stayed with me. What I keep returning to is what caused the tree to have shallow roots. The tree was doomed because it had never been forced to develop deep roots. It did not have to work for the water. There were no dry spells to encourage the roots to dig deep into the ground for hidden aquafers.

The woman meant well watering her yard. We all mean well when we make life easier for others. We care about our plants, our pets, our family, our friends, and even the wildlife around us.

But there is growing research that what we think is helpful may be harmful. Feeding wildlife can hinder their ability to forage naturally (Don’t feed the wildlife!). There is growing evidence that protecting our young children from failure and heartache limits their ability to manage those situations as adults (Let your children fail). And making water too easily accessible for our trees may prevent them from growing deeper roots.

Could this be true in our faith as well?

A woman once told me that she had been skipping going to her big screen church because she just didn’t feel happy enough to sing all that praise music and lift her hands. I wanted to ask her what being happy had to do with worshiping God, but instead I encouraged her to read the psalms.

I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. Psalm 6:6.

Just maybe it is precisely the times of pain and thirst that encourage us to develop deeper roots of faith.

Can we believe in a God who lets thousands die in flooding? Who lets a child be abused? Can we worship a God who shatters our happy life? How will we know if our life is always easy and successful and well-watered?

When the storms of life come, and they do come, I want my roots to reach deep to find the hidden joys of a relationship with God. There is everlasting water there. It may not be easy water. It probably won’t be easy water. It may not contain the laughter of the water park, but it will bring peace and strength and faith.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14.

Today, I will praise God for those days when He has led me develop deeper roots of faith. I thank Him for those days of drought and heat, of tears and sadness, of doubts and fears that have led me to dig deep and find His eternal water.

Would it be wrong to wish the same for you?

Love in Christ, Betsy

Change

The cucumber plants have died. The pepper plants are dying. It’s time to call the summer garden done and begin preparations for fall.

Change is never easy. The end of something you loved, successful or not, is a loss. The days are over when I can fix or improve this year’s harvest. It was what it was and now I must move on.

This year, that moving on involves work. My fence is broken down and torn apart in places. My soil is diseased and in need of restoration. My body tells me to stop bending over the fence to harvest and develop a means of easier access. So, I have called in my garden helpers, and we will slowly reconfigure the garden. It is too much to do in a day. And I have at best one morning a week to give to my garden. And I have some time before I need to plant again, so I am in no hurry.

This seems to be the way most change happens, slowly, over time, a little bit at a time. Not all change is good, but not all change is bad either. This tearing down of my garden feels destructive. I’m ripping up dead plants, pulling out supporting cages, and tearing down protective fences. This can’t be good, right?

Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. Isaiah 5:5.

But the garden is such a glimpse of a larger reality. I know that all this destruction will enable my garden to produce more and better fruit in the future. I know that this destruction is not permanent. Like re-breaking a bone before you can set it properly, sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.

We know it’s true, but it’s hard to see when our lives are being ripped up, our support pulled away, and our defenses destroyed. It just feels like destructive change. It feels like judgment.

Perhaps it is judgement, in the sense that I know my garden can produce better fruit than it did this past year. This year’s harvest was fine. I loved the few tomatoes I got, the random cucumbers, the scanty basil leaves, but I know the space has produced better in the past. If I want it to produce better in the future, some destruction needs to happen.

Perhaps God knows that you are capable of oh-so-much more than you are producing right now. Not that what you are giving to the world right now is bad or unappreciated, just that God wants your life to be abundant and your garden to be fruitful.

I am the vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. John 15:1-2.

The problem, of course, is that the promised benefit is in the future. Right now, all we sense is destruction and judgment.

If, however, our desired goal is a closer relationship with God and if difficulties, change, and disruptions deepen and strengthen that relationship, then we can see them as pruning, as ensuring an abundant future. If our desire goal is a comfortable, easy life, we will not see the beauty in overturning the garden.

The transformation of my garden will take a while. I hope you will continue to join me by reading along. I can’t promise it will be pretty, but I am confident that God will bring something good out of all of it.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Just Enough

I am new to growing figs, but I was encouraged to grow them by the baskets full of figs that friends have shared in the past. Too much to eat, too much to process, too much to share. For some reason, that has not been my experience.

My tree is producing figs and they are delicious! Sweet and pithy, they dissolve in my mouth, and I love having them available. But they ripen one at a time every few days. So, if I share a ripe fig with you, it is the one and only ripe fig I have that day. Tomorrow I may have another one, but if I don’t eat it soon, it will become overripe.

As grateful as I am for each and every fig, I also feel a little, well, disappointed. I don’t want to share the few I have and yet I would like to have enough to share them with others, let others share my joy, perhaps brag a little. And there’s the rub. I want a big harvest partially so you will be impressed by my big harvest.

See how God has blessed me! Oh, yes. God definitely gets the credit. I can not make a single fig appear, or a tomato or a cucumber or even a basil leaf. But there is still pride in showing off how much God has blessed my gardening efforts, and some embarrassment when those blessings seem a little scarce and far apart.

Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10.

Sometimes, God seems to give to us abundantly and sometimes only just what we need for today. And it is tempting to think that this has something to do with us, with our efforts and attitudes, with our righteous living or poor decision making. But it could have more to do with God than with us.

Perhaps he gives us abundance so that we can share, just enough so that we can trust in His providence, and not quite enough so that others can be generous. Perhaps a limited supply is the blessing.

So, God has blessed me with a few ripe figs, and I am grateful for them. I don’t have enough to make fig preserves or take a basket to my friends, but I have one for today and one for tomorrow and what more, really, does anyone need?

Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11.

In this culture where more is better, we may confuse abundance with blessing. It may be tempting to think that riches signify God’s approval. God may give us riches for His purposes, but He may also call us to sell all that we own (Mark 10:21). He may tell us to take nothing with us (Luke 9:3). He may even turn our idea of blessing on its head.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12.

These ripening figs are a gift. An underserved gracious gift from a loving God. I will be grateful and not complain that there is not more. I do not need more. He has provided what I need, my daily fig.

Love in Christ, Betsy