Tag: Bible

Enthusiasm

I thought my cucumbers were enthusiastic plants, climbing their supports and stretching outside the fence, but they are mild in comparison to this raspberry plant!

In her second year, my raspberry plant has already birthed three new plants in the cracks in the cardboard covering. She is almost six feet tall. I sense I need to cut her back, hem her in, trim off the excess.

I have seen articles and studies on pruning, but I skim right past them. Tomato plants and cucumbers don’t require pruning. Although it’s possible they could be better if I did prune them…

Pruning is an important part of growing perennial plants, but I am new to perennials and have much to learn. Seeing this raspberry bush take over my garden and reach into the yard makes me want to learn. This can’t be best for the plant, best for the berry harvest, or best for me.

And yet, her growth is thrilling. Her enthusiasm for growth is contagious. I want to grow with enthusiasm and burst out all over the place!

My mother used to tamp down my enthusiasm on a regular basis, to the point where I felt like a wild pony trapped in a corral. But she understood. She had been a cheerleader in her youth; enthusiasm runs in my genes. Perhaps she was trying to prune me.

He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. John 15:2.

I am tempted to use this as my guide for how to prune. I am sure Jesus’ listeners at the time knew how to prune; they were grape and olive growers. They were being asked to apply their gardening knowledge to spiritual growth. Perhaps that is what the Holy Spirit would like me to do – learn how to prune this raspberry bush, when and how and to what extent, and apply that knowledge to my spiritual life.

Perhaps the goal should not be excessive growth that spreads out everywhere, but a contained healthy plant that produces much fruit. My smaller tomato plants are covered in green tomatoes, while this huge raspberry produces few berries.

And her uncontained growth is casting a shadow on my fig tree, growing straight and true beside her.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4.

There’s a chance I, like my raspberry plant, have focused on the wrong thing – expansion verses fruit. There’s the possibility that my naturally enthusiastic self has spread beyond my boundaries and overshadowed another.

The raspberry bush cannot prune herself. It’s as if her enthusiastic nature can’t be contained. And I don’t want to stifle her; I just want her focused more on fruit than expansion. And that will allow my fig tree to flourish as well.

As for pruning my own enthusiasm, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will do this if we let him. He will prune us so that we will bear more fruit.

So, I will learn what I need to know about pruning and try to redirect my raspberry plant’s focus. Find the best way to encourage productive growth. Cut out the excess that her enthusiasm has rendered. I need to let the Holy Spirit do the same with me.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. John 16:13.

The first thing I need to do is learn. The main thing I need to do is listen. The Master Gardener, the creator of all gardens, the creator of all life, knows what I need to do.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Cooler Weather

It’s hot today, but just last week we enjoyed unusual cool weather. The cool morning air called me to set my coffee down and pull some weeds. What a lovely time to be outside.

Recent rains have made my grass green again. The hedgerow has ended its summer siesta and is greeting me with outstretched limbs and upturned leaves. I know the days are getting shorter and soon these plants will tire and fade, but it is still August. My tomatoes may be on their last leg, but the peppers, the basil, the raspberry, and the fig are full of life.

So are the weeds.

During the hot weeks, I stopped pulling them every day. Their growth was stunted by the heat, as was my willingness to exert myself. But the cooler weather revived us all.

The cardboard laid across the ground has done a fair job of keeping the weeds away from the plants, but the fence line is a different story. There, on the edges of the cardboard, where the fence meets exposed ground, the weeds thrive. Crabgrass reaches over the mulch to cover the ground; tall grasses rejoice in their safety from the mower; pilgrims from the hedgerow find new homes. Sometimes the garden plants are hard to see through the weeds.

How did I let this happen? I had been so conscientious earlier in the summer. My attention had waned with the heat and the lack of fruit. Other matters had occupied my thoughts and my hands.

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering. 1 Peter 5:8-9.

I have not been disciplined, alert, steadfast. I have let the weeds grow.

But it is a beautiful cool morning so I will pull some now. I will recommit myself to pulling some weeds every morning.

Therefore, we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. Hebrews 2:1.

Drifting away is so easy. New interests draw my eye. Other activities demand my time. Different challenges occupy my mind. Suddenly I am no longer focused on loving God and loving my neighbor. Suddenly there are weeds growing in my garden.

Sometimes I find it hard to focus on loving one another. It’s so nebulous. No clear check list. What does it mean to love one another just as Jesus loved us? (John 13:34)

Fortunately, Paul gives us a description of what a weed-free garden of love looks like.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it’s not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

I have some weeds in my garden. They grew when I was busy with other things, when I had drifted away, when I wasn’t paying attention.

But God has granted me the grace to see the weeds and the gift of a cool morning. It’s not too late to pull some weeds. It’s never too late to share God’s love.

Do you know how much God loves you? Each and every one of you, no matter how many weeds are growing in your garden, no matter how little fruit is evident, no matter how far you may have drifted. God loves you.

Won’t you join me today in the cool of the morning? We’ll pick the weeds that hide the beautiful plants growing in our lives.

Love in Christ, Betsy

Information about my new book, Garden Devotions, is available in the menu at the top of this page. Just click on the link titled Garden Devotions! Thanks!

Nothing Remains The Same

Old age and high temperatures have taken their toll on my sugar snaps. I waited to plant some of my seeds until mid-March, so I might have sugar snaps in June, but it is too warm for them now. Their time has passed. Now, all my attention needs to go to the rest of my garden.

My tomato plants are sporting yellow flowers, promising red fruit in the future. Tiny green orbs are dotting my pepper plants. The cucumbers are claiming the space provided. My garden is growing. Even the fig and raspberry bushes are gaining height and sprouting new leaves, perfumed by the basil nearby.

Whenever I hear something that begins with “If things stay this way,” the gardener in me laughs. Things never stay the same. Nothing ever stays the way it is. God created His universe to be in a constant state of change. Even things that seem permanent to us like mountains and oceans are constantly changing incrementally. We know this. We have known this since childhood. And yet we still strive for permanence.

We strive to make things perfect in some delusion that they might stay that way. We build homes and offices to withstand storms, but we know they are not truly permanent. Ruins from civilizations long gone remind us that structures may outlast their inhabitants, but they will not remain the same.

The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:8.

We long for that permanence like we long for the tree that produces fruit year-round. Because God has planted that image in our soul, an image of lasting permanence, an image of eternity, an image of Himself.

And He reminds me that I cannot achieve this by my own efforts on this earth. He reminds me of this every day as I walk along the garden and see how it has changed since yesterday.

There is a time for everything. It was true when Solomon said it, and it is true today.

I am not going to fret over the loss of my sugar snaps. They had a glorious season, but it is time for other fruits to shine. I will pull a garlic bulb soon to see how they are doing. Little green tomatoes will ripen into red ones. The cucumbers will continue to indulge their appetite for space.

And while I wait for all these changes, I will water and tend my garden daily. I will treasure this garden for bringing me outside every day. I may even pull the weeds that create a border around my growing plants.

These plants remind me that change is not always a bad thing. I do not want my garden to stay as it is right now, as beautiful as it is to me. I want my plants to age and bear fruit, even if it signals their impending death. That is these plants’ purpose.

I don’t want to stay the same forever either. I want to grow and mature and bear fruit, even as I know I am moving ever closer to my demise. I may live thirty more years; I may die today. God cares for me no matter my life span. He loves me and has put me here for a purpose. He loves you and has put you here for a purpose.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared before hand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:8-10.

And that word of God does remain the same, remains as true today as it was when it was written.

O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 136:26.

Betsy

Growth

The sugar snaps are growing. The older ones are my height now, the younger ones are chest high. They are reaching out for anything to twirl their tendrils around, constantly pulling themselves upward. They are growing.

God fuels their growth with rain, and I provide water on dry days. They battle the weeds which have sprung up around them, trying to divert their upward growth. Some plants seem to struggle more than others.

I planted these seeds later than usual, so the garden is a few weeks behind my garden last year. The calendar date does not dictate when they blossom; the plants must reach a certain maturity before they produce fruit. My sugar snaps are still growing.

I could be frustrated that I don’t have fruit yet. It is May. But my frustration would not make these plants produce flowers. Seventy days of growth will bring fruit if they get plenty of water and overcome the weeds. Soon, but not today.

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth… James 5:7.

Are you growing? Am I? Are we impatient to bear fruit when God knows we need this time to grow?

Some of you may be taller than me, further along in your maturity. Some of us may be battling invasive weeds which tie us down and hinder our growth. Some of us may be living in dry days; we may need the living water of communion with God before we can continue to grow.

The growing season can seem to last forever. Fear nibbles at the back of my brain, telling me things will never change, the plant will never flower, the fruit will never come. But that is not true.

Just as my toddler grand-twins will one day tie their shoelaces even though they can’t now, so my plants will one day bear sugar snaps, so we will one day bear the fruit God is growing in us.

The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come. Mark 4:26-29.

God is the one growing fruit. As Jesus tells us in John 15, only God can produce His fruit in us; we cannot produce it on our own. We sprout and grow, and we do not even know how. It is not my job to worry about when His fruit will appear. It is my job to stay connected to the vine, stay hydrated with prayer, and overcome the weeds. And to watch for the fruit, to put it to good use once it appears.

I am proud of my growing sugar snaps. They look beautiful to me, reaching out, reaching up, growing taller every day. To think that the dried pods I put in the ground in March have matured into these plants amazes me. God has completely transformed them. Once lifeless, they are now on the cusp of bearing fruit. Isn’t God amazing?

Too often I am so focused on what has not yet happened that I fail to see all that God has already done. He has brought life where there appeared to be none. He does it every day, everywhere. He has brought growth even when we thought it impossible.

Today, I rejoice and give thanks for growth. Won’t you join me?

Let the heavens be glad and let he earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, “The Lord is King!” Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exalt, and everything in it. I Chronicles 16:31-32.