A Lesson from the Garden

Have you ever planted a garden with really great intentions only to let weeds take it over? That’s what we’re currently dealing with right now. We expanded our garden this year even though we knew we’d be adding another little one to our family in April, which meant we’d have three boys under three over the summer. We knew it was going to be a lot, but we thought we’d be able to stay on top of it and now it’s August and we’re definitely not on top of it. There are weeds that are big enough to be small trees, tomatoes that never received a cage, plants that never got to be pruned, and squash vines taking over everywhere and they have squash bugs. Yuck! It’s kind of a mess to be honest. As I was out there the other night, I realized that that’s how a lot of life can be — good intentions without proper care can become overrun with weeds, pests, diseases, and unhealthy growth.

There have been so many times in my life when good intentions have been neglected, and while some of the growth I was desiring happens, a lot more of it is stunted by outside factors that I don’t take care of. When boundaries aren’t established, good intentions can become overrun like the squash vines in our garden. We didn’t take the time to establish boundaries for the squash vines — which wouldn’t have taken much time had we done it early on. When we don’t establish boundaries in our lives — which in my experience is easier to do earlier as opposed to later — we can end up having something overtake an area that we didn’t want it to. Squash attach themselves to anything that gets in their way — in our case, bean plants. They grow tendrils which wrap themselves around anything they can and once they do, it’s nearly impossible to unwrap them without damaging the tendril, the thing it’s attached to, or both. That’s like life — without healthy boundaries, little “tendrils” can grip onto things they shouldn’t which makes the boundary so much harder to establish without causing some damage.

Like our tomato plants that didn’t receive their cages, without proper support, our good intentions can “fall over” once they start to grow. Sometimes we need help staying up. The best support that we could ever possibly have is Jesus Himself and He is more than enough support, so please don’t think I mean that if you don’t have other people to support you that it means you are wrong. When we are obedient to The Father, it truly doesn’t matter if others support us or not — I’m not saying support from others isn’t helpful, it just isn’t necessary to be obedient to God. There are times when God uses other people to help keep us growing in the right direction — like a tomato cage does for a tomato plant. In His kindness, He puts people in our lives to help us along the way and encourage us to grow.

In regards to pruning — it hurts, but it is so necessary to encourage healthy growth. When plants aren’t pruned, they might produce a large quantity of fruit, but it won’t be as high of quality. The plant will be healthier and the fruit it produces will be better if it’s pruned. Pruning also helps the plant focus it’s energy on producing high quality fruit instead of it’s energy being pulled in a million different directions. Isn’t that like life? When we allow God to prune us, it can be painful, but it leads to higher quality fruit. Our growth can be hindered when pruning doesn’t take place. Our plants that didn’t receive pruning early on, are being asked to split their energy up and produce a large quantity of fruit which is resulting in produce being wasted because of a lack of quality and healthy growth. Some of the plants aren’t even producing fruit yet because they’re working so hard to grow the plant that they haven’t been able to focus on the fruit yet. Pruning is a lot easier in the beginning stages. Pruning of our hearts is a lot easier and much less painful in the beginning stages. Once we’ve grown a new branch or have fruit producing in an unhealthy way — it’s a lot harder to receive and is a lot more painful.

Unwanted pests and diseases like blossom end rot, squash bugs, blight, or any of the others can also cause a lot of damage when they aren’t taken care of. An attentive gardener checks for signs of pests and disease often so they can take care of them in the beginning stages as opposed to letting them take over and ruin the harvest. We need to be attentive to the things in our lives. We need to take inventory and check on the things we’re working on often in order to keep them healthy. We don’t want our growth to be taken over by pests and/or disease. There are indicators of pests and disease in the garden and there are indicators of pests and disease in our life. When we’re able to identify the pests and diseases that are hindering or killing our growth, we are able to get to the root cause and treat the problem accordingly. God is in the business of helping us grow in a healthy way — we just need to ask Him to help us identify the pests and disease in our life, so that we can treat it accordingly. Sometimes the disease takes over or the pests cause so much damage that the plant has to be ripped out. Sometimes that happens to things in our lives that aren’t treated with the proper care. Something can become so ruined and so full of disease (sin(s) in our lives) that in order to stay healthy we have to rip it out. It makes me think of quitting things “cold turkey.” Sometimes we have to “rip” things out our lives and plant a new, healthy seed (habit) and restart the growth process.

The garden is filled with lessons and I’ve learned so much each year that we’ve had one. God uses so many physical things to teach us spiritual things and help us understand things in a more tangible way — for which I’m grateful. We didn’t keep up with our garden this year and now we’re having to take a bunch of time in the harvest trying to separate the weeds from the plants, treat pests and diseases that needed attention earlier, and having to be so careful with the weeds we do pull so that we don’t kill the plant in the process. Our harvest season isn’t over yet, but I’ve already learned so much and I’m grateful that we expanded our garden this year because there was a lesson to be learned. When we begin to plan our garden for next year, we’ll be able to apply the things we’ve learned this year, which will be so helpful. The same goes for lessons learned in life. God teaches us so much in every season of life that we find ourselves in and when we learn something, then we are able to apply it to our lives — which allows for even greater growth.

Have you ever planted a garden? If yes, have you ever had it become overrun with weeds, pests, and disease?

Song(s) of the Week: This week I chose “Plans” by Rend Collective. Enjoy!