Monday, May 5, 2008

Gardening

Do you like to garden? (I am referring to vegetable gardening.) Well, I've lived in a rural area for the past 9 years and I've had a vegetable garden each year. This has been an extremely busy spring for me and for the first time in nine years I decided not to garden, until my kids started pressuring me. "We love to garden", they said. "We'll take care of it", they added. After talking with my husband and having him encourage me as well I decided to start our 9th vegetable garden.

I've gone out and purchased all of the plants/seeds that we will need and I've talked with my children about their responsibility with the garden this year. Now comes the fun part, plowing and planting. It's just good clean fun, until about mid August.... that's when things can get out of control and the weeds/bugs can easily outnumber the fruits/vegetables that are in the garden.

Luke 14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he may have enough to finish it;

What a wise verse of scripture this is. When starting out, the soil is perfect and weed/bug free. But to count the cost is to realistically say, "there will be bugs and weeds and this will require a good amount of work to even get a harvest". I am trying to teach this to my kids as a good object lesson. You see, they are so excited about having their own row in our garden but I would imagine, come August, they are going to be complaining about their row and the work that will be involved.

This reminds me of the Israelites who begged to get out of Egypt, but never counted the cost of living in the dessert. What are you praying for today? Have you counted the cost? Have you considered what it will look like in the future? It is interesting to look at the verse just before Luke 14:28:

Luke 14:27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me, he cannot be My disciple.

We must bear our cross. God knew the cost of following Him. He knew that at the point of salvation the soil would be pure and weed/bug free, but He also knew that after a season the bugs/weeds would appear and we'd have to be prepared for some real hard work to even get a harvest in our lives. So, whatever it is that you are praying for in your lives.... consider the cost and be prepared to bear your cross when the weeds/bugs come into your life. Then you can expect to have a bountiful harvest!

Happy Gardening!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Weeds when likened to sin can create enough material for several sermons. If we don't tend to weeds (sin) as they appear in our garden (lives) we will soon be overcome with them and they will sap the nutrition from us.
Great Blog and quite an encouragement.

Kelly said...

I don't like gardening, just for the reasons you mentioned! Bugs! Weeds! BUT, your blog makes me wonder in what other areas of my life am I missing a "bountiful harvest" because I don't want to pay "the cost."

Thanks for the inspiration.

Bonita said...

Well, obviously, you and I are hearing the same things from God these days! You mentioned this post on my blog and this was actually one of the scriptures I had thought about as I was meditating on Proverbs 24:27. I can't tell you how many times in life I've gone into something all starry eyed without counting the cost. I hope your kids learn the lesson with the garden so they don't have to learn it later in life like I have done! Great analogy between the garden and that verse!

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