Hooray! It’s finally harvest time for tomatoes, cukes, peppers, corn and squash…well, the tomatoes do seem to be dragging their feet a bit this year. As you gardeners all know, crops seem to take forever to mature and when they ripen, they all come at once. This is especially true of that rascally zucchini. Thus, many kitchens are filled with the scent of tomato juice becoming sauce or salsa, cukes soaking in the vinegar mix that will soon render them pickles and green beans simmering with new potatoes, bacon and onions. And then, there is zucchini bread! Yummmmmmy!

Even though her tomatoes are lagging, much to our delight our very generous, almost neighbor has been sharing from her bounty. Our benefactor is actually the daughter of our ninety-three-year-old neighbor and since she spends a large part of her life taking care of her mom these days she has become our “almost neighbor.” She and her husband have a farm near Pierce City where they work a very large garden. They left the ground fallow last summer and are reaping the rewards for their patience now. They are both very giving people and insist that half the fun of having a garden is being able to share the fruits of their labors with others. Thus we have enjoyed sweet corn, green beans and bell peppers and we hope there will be red ripe, juicy tomatoes in our near future.

Harvest time is great fun and very rewarding……but a lot of sweat equity goes into those veggies in order to reap the current bounty. As stated, soil sometimes needs to rest and replenish. Often it must be amended with nutrients to promote healthy growth. In spring, before anything can happen, the soil must be broken with a tiller, or a tractor and plow in larger spaces. Fertilizer or other amendments are added before seeds or tiny seedlings can be planted. Crops need to be rotated because each one depletes the soil of different nutrients as well as leaving behind various others. By changing the crop locations within the garden space each season, better productivity can be expected.  Plants, like every living thing, need water, especially during dry times, and certainly weeds need to be removed that would choke them out and use up all of the nutrients in the soil.

And even when you do everything just right, our infamous Missouri wind and hail can wipe out the best of gardens and crops. Equally infamous are the insects that feast on all our garden favorites. Gardeners and farmers invest a great deal of themselves into the production of fresh veggies to share or sell. Some years they are highly successful and others….seems like nothing goes right.

And this leads me to ponder how much time we spend cultivating the soil of our lives, what amendments we are adding and just who we’re looking to as our source of life-giving water?  

Jesus is preparing the soil of my life with goodness and mercy. He wants the  fruit of His Spirit in every area of my life.

What is the soil of our lives, you ask? Consider these questions. Who are we listening to? What books are we reading? What movies or TV shows catch our interest? Are we overly worried about how we look, the clothes we wear, the homes we live in, the cars we drive, the jobs we work at? Who are we trying to impress? How are we fitting into our current culture? How many Facebook friends can we boast of and how much time do we indulge in social media? Are these the things we allow to nourish the soil of our hearts? Tough questions, yes? Yet questions we all need to ask ourselves. If we try to nourish our souls with the things in our lives and if we’re spending so much of our lives trying to be part of the world, how can we find time to invest in our relationship with Jesus  and the mission He has extended to us? How can we be Jesus to the world if our greater desire is to be of this world?

Jesus is the spring of living water. He wants me to grow, grow, GROW!

I certainly don’t suggest you give up your home or job or even donate all your possessions to those less fortunate, but I do suggest a sincere heart inventory. If we keep laser-focused on the true Master Gardener of our hearts and souls, He will equip us to fulfill the task set before us. He’ll go with us through the storms and provide a shield against tormentors. He will nourish us with Living Water and grow us into His image.

And here I get to use my very favorite scripture passage in the entire Bible. It truly speaks to me…please let it speak to you.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster,  to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11.

(Quotes, other than scripture, are taken from Mornings with Jesus 2024 and credited to Susanna Foth Aughtmon.)