She Who Gardens, Grows (Part 2)

“For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seed to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”

This verse is the last in Isaiah 61, the chapter from which Unveiled61was birthed. I’ve been constantly in awe as God has continued to unfold each passage to me and the ways He’s using it to speak about what He’s doing in my life. This verse has made its way to the “garden series” and the gardening that’s taking place in my life right now.

If you read my last blog then you’ll remember that the foundation of any successful garden is its soil. It must be nutrient-filled, easily workable, have the appropriate pH level, contain the proper drainage and moisture retention, and be able to be quickly warmed yet slowly dried out. We discovered that our soul is much like the soil and needs the right condition for planting and growing bountiful crops.

I encouraged you to spend time in the presence of God, prayer, His Word, and repentance so that He could uncover and begin the restoration process of all that’s been corrupted, damaged, and scorched in your soul. We want to get to the harvest of beautiful reflections in the mirror and relationships by our side, but we need the season of preparation and cultivation to get there. If you bypass this process or shoot for a quick fix, you’ll ruin what could have been prosperous had you just exercised patience and diligence to do the work (I’m actively speaking to and chastising myself right now – ugh I don’t want to wait!). If I dig a little deeper though, I’ll see that there is something I don’t have to wait on.

“Farmers who wait for the perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.” Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT

I came across this passage in a magazine I was reading recently. It reminded me of a statement I had to live out at a time in my life when I sometimes just needed the strength to breathe. That statement was “work and weep.” More often than not we can’t control our external circumstances. We can’t make that boss less challenging, that family member or friend more responsible, the world less selfish, or our significant other more present and caring. Oh, tried I did! But that just made me a cacophonous and demanding tyrant of no one’s castle but my own. And there were no servants there to attend to me. So I learned how to keep going and make progress, even if it was slow, as I wept over what could not be changed around me.

There is always something to be done in each season, even seasons of waiting. The farmer must wait to put his seed in the ground until the proper time, but in the season prior he must prepare the ground to receive those seeds. In our seasons of waiting to plant, there is another work to be accomplished. This may include uprooting, tiling, and cultivating the land of our hearts and minds. It may be digging up weeds of unfruitfulness to make space to plant something that will taste good. These crop annihilators could be anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, pain, trauma, divisiveness, negative thinking, control, manipulation, lasciviousness, unhealthy relational ties, and other various idols precious to us.

Sometimes the work is even rest. The need to rest from being involved in certain activities and with certain people. The need to rest in the peace, security, and provision of God rather than worrying about how to acquire something or change it, them, or me. Whatever work we do it must be deliberate and chosen. It will cost you something, even if that’s you releasing the reins of something you don’t want to or patiently investing in small choices though the ground has not yet rendered the promise of a sprout.

In my gardening process, the greatest work I have before me is grieving and healing. In fact, grieving is healing – a part of it anyways. Healing is taking much longer than I anticipated just like getting that ideal loamy soil. It’s taking lots of good teaching messages, lots of others’ stories of healing and recovery, lots of shoulders to cry on and ears to vent to, lots of prayer, lots of time before God, lots of reflection and writing, and lots of snotty tissues. In a nutshell, it’s taken and taking a lot.

Whatever work you now face, I want to encourage you with a passage God gave me during my season of working and weeping I mentioned to you earlier and one I still need now:

“But as for you, be strong and courageous, for your work will be rewarded.” 2 Chronicles 15:7 NLT (Read full context: 2 Chronicles 15:1-15)

When you’re thinking about putting down the plow and throwing your sickle to the side, I need you to get the harvest in your vision. Take some time to write down what you see. And then remember when you get weary, that’s what the work is for. And oh yeah, it’s going to be worth it.

• What harvest do you want to see in your soul? in your relationships?

• What must be sacrificed, pulled up, and tilled to see it?

• What areas in your life do you need to rest and give the plow to God?

Be sure to follow Unveiled61 on social media for another gem nugget while you’re waiting on the next blog. And don’t forget to subscribe to be notified a new blog is available.