How His Garden Grows.
- laviecultivee
- Apr 27, 2023
- 5 min read
Guest Post by Whitney Mahoney, Band of Opals.
Is there anything better than watching something you planted take on a life of its own and grow? A child growing in your belly, swimming, kicking, dreaming, and developing. A seed you planted grows into food to eat, a tree to climb, or a flower to admire. A financial investment that blesses you down the road with a return. Teaching someone a skill and watching them surpass you.
I finally planted lettuce this year. I love fresh lettuce. I remember the first time I joined a CSA and picked up a box of spring vegetables from a local farm. I couldn’t wait to get home and try all the different greens. Finding out what in the world kohlrabi was… was a totally different mission.
If you have eaten only grocery store lettuce all your life, then suddenly try fresh-cut lettuce you are in for a treat. It couldn’t be more different than the bland or bitter lettuce you’ve been eating. It’s fresh and sweet and barely related to what you can get in the produce section.
I’ve always wanted to grow some of my own vegetables but lacked the skill and motivation. This year I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?” So, I tried again and ordered some seeds, sowing them into the raised beds built by the previous homeowner. I planted four different types and then did it again two weeks later this time with a different spacing method. I’ll do it again in another week. Something is bound to make it onto my dining room table before summer. If I’m lucky I will have more than I can handle, and I will get to share an abundance with friends.
Today when I went out to water the garden and see how my seeds were growing, I was surprised to see so much green there. This made me think of a parable.
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29 NIV)
I really don’t know how the seeds grew! I know the ingredients the seed needed, but how? It knows when to sprout, what leaves to form first, then next. It will know when to flower and produce seeds of its own. Thank goodness it doesn’t need my guidance. It has God to thank for that. He created plants to produce seeds of their own kind and gave us the task of tending them.
The way things grow in the spiritual world is just as mysterious to me. A few years ago, a very good friend of mine came to visit. After working together and doing life together for years we both left that job and moved away. She moved out of the state, and I moved out of the area. In the intervening years, we traveled to see each other and kept in touch, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
During that time God called me back into relationship with Him.
He called me out of every type of sin. He started healing up all the wounds and changing my routines. I spent hours with Him, learning, worshipping, and changing.
I was a new creation according to 2 Corinthians 5:17. The Whitney she knew was gone and we both knew it. I was a better friend, mother, and wife, but I was surely different.
She drove to see me, and we sat at my dining room table and talked for hours. At that time, because of COVID, all our lives looked a little different, but she was single and worked a job that required telework and had had a lonely year. She was down and my heart ached for her.
Just before she left, we were standing in the kitchen and I heard God say, “Pray for her. I’m the only one who can help.” “Oh, please no, God. That would be so awkward. She knows old Whitney. She knows potty mouth, drunk, adulterous Whitney. She knows rude, inconsiderate, gossip, Whitney.” He did not let me off the hook, and I was right, it was awkward.
I prayed that He would comfort her and draw near to her. That He would heal her heart and bless her with His friendship. In the middle of praying, I peeked to see what she was doing. She was looking at me with a bewildered expression. “What is happening?” Is what I read on her face. That face that both God and I loved.
We didn’t discuss it again but about a year later I had an exciting phone conversation with her. She told me she went to church with her mother and stepfather and that the sermon had somehow been specifically for her. “How did that happen?” I knew. She told me she had been listening to a podcast that told short Bible stories, and that confirmed it. God was wooing her.
He was doing it because I had asked, and I had asked because He wanted to do it. I don’t know how it grew after I planted it. That was His seed, and oh my how it has grown.
She is a follower of Jesus now. It has been amazing to answer questions, discuss sermons, read the Bible together, and watch her grow. God reveals amazing things to her, and I have benefited from it many times. A good harvest. She is already producing her own seeds.
There is no friendship like a Godly friendship. Even that has been transformed. Something that was already a blessing has become greater because it is now built on Jesus.
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:2-3)
I am guessing that when I eat that first fresh salad it will spur me on to plant lettuce seeds again in the fall. In fact, once I have seen some success, I will probably want to plant more things, not just lettuce. I will research and shop and pray that God blesses my efforts. I will share with my husband and teach my children. We will praise God because He and His creation are good.
Now that I know what God can do with my small acts of obedience, I want to plant more Kingdom of Heaven seeds. I want to check back in and water the ones I can. I want to share with my husband and teach my children. I want to gather testimonies and praise God for how He makes things grow, and how He has woven His Word throughout nature.
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:1-4)
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