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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
My grandmother used to have a garden of sorts. A habit she carried over from living through the Great Depression...minus the rabbits (for those of you who didn't know this: rabbits were raised during that time because they reproduced/grew quickly and were used for meat/protein). She raised all sorts of peas and beans and various vegetables. Holiday dinners were loaded with stuff right out of the garden.
That's as close as I've ever come to farming. I was raised in the suburbs of a city, and the only thing that comes close to farming there is mowing the grass. Maybe going through the produce section of the grocery store.
So I can't say that I understand the process of farming, but through simple observation of my grandmother's gardening I can at least see that the process takes time and a lot of things go on that aren't really seen until much later.
For example, my grandmother would begin each year by tilling the soil. In fact, the family went for the "chip in" on the gift one year and got her a fancy gas-powered one. But it took a day or two of serious work to get the soil prepared.
It was a simple garden, so it didn't take long for her to decide what she was going to plant...but she had to spend a few hours going to the store and picking out the seeds and such. Once she did, she took a few more hours planting them a certain way in certain rows and all that jazz. She even had stakes at the end of each row with the package of seeds stapled to it so she'd know what went where.
Then she watered. This took hours, too...back before timed sprinklers. She'd stand out there with her hose and sprayer with vitamins in it for about an hour a day. Not too much. Not too little. I don't know how she knew but she stopped at the right time.
Then she waited. For months. Stuff would sprout & grow.
Then she put out the scarecrow and traps and put nets over certain stuff so the varmints wouldn't eat it all. Didn't want her hard work to go to waste.
She tended her garden.
And every year my family benefited from peas, beans and vegetables at our holiday table.
It's a microcosm of farming in some ways. The principle is the same, anyway. It takes time.
And so does the spiritual life.
You pay attention to little things. You go to church. You attend a Sunday School class. You read the Word on your own. You encourage others and have them encourage you. You spend time in prayer. Even if you don't feel like doing those things at times, you do them. And you don't see the growth every day, really.
My grandmother sure didn't. I only came by about twice a month, and each time I could see visible results even though to her it didn't seem to stand out that much.
It's the same way with us, too. You simply pay attention to, and do, those things that cause growth. And, like the plants, stuff happened that couldn't be observed by outsiders--underneath the soil, in the stems and roots--that became visible over time and benefitted others.
And that's something else Brad alluded to: Give yourself the grace to grow at a slow pace. The spiritual life is a long race, not a sprint to the tape, and it is easy to look at others and say we're not going as fast or even to look at ourselves and how slow we appear to be going and that makes us want to quit...I mean, why bother?
So, for today, how can we apply the idea that it takes time for spiritual growth? How can we encourage others in the day-to-day? How can we personally cultivate our spiritual lives when it's so easy to focus on the "trees" of our sin rather than the "forest" of our growth?
Brent 4:16 AM
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