How does your garden grow?

One thing I appreciate about God is his willingness to speak to us on our level. God is desperate for our attention, and will use whatever he can to get it. The Bible is full of parables explaining the greatness of God through ordinary things, stories Jesus told to his followers. For us today, we don't have Jesus in person to speak with us, but we do have a book to convey God's message. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus was the Word (John 1:1) and Jesus is also God. Knowing the Word (the Bible), is knowing Jesus, which is knowing God (John 14:7). But if Hooked on Phonics didn't work for you or if you just don't have access to a Bible, God can and will still try to draw your attention to him. Romans 1:20 says that we are "without excuse" because we can see God "through what has been made." Walk outside and watch a sunset. Look at baby animals. Smell the flowers. See the tiny veins in each and every leaf. God's handiwork is amazing, and God uses what he's made to reach his favorite creation... you!

Speaking of nature, I was speaking to a friend about sowing and reaping the other day. Galatians 6:7 says that "A man reaps what he sows." In other words, what goes around comes around. What you do in life has results. In much the same way, the effort that you put into your relationship with God will directly affect how close you are to him. I remember God telling me my freshman year that I had to "pull the weeds to plant the seeds." It took me a while to puzzle out what he meant, but when I got it, it made so much sense. Think about trying to plant a garden. You can't just sprinkle seeds at random in your back yard and expect to get a great harvest. No, first you have to till the soil. If you don't know what that means, lucky you. My parents had a decent sized garden when I was little. Looking back, there's no way it could be as monstrous as I remember, but I distinctly remember the exhausting, dirty work of digging up all the grass to expose the soil, picking up all the rocks, and then churning up the earth so it was a welcoming environment for the little seeds I then planted. It was hot and boring. And hard! But necessary to get a good harvest.

If you want a good relationship with God, you have to expect to do work. You can't just sprinkle a little Bible, a little prayer, and a little worship into your life and expect to come up with a massive harvest! You have to rip up the things that used to be in your life to make way for what God wants to do. It's a constant process. The weeds will always fight for space in your life; they will always try to choke out what you put so much effort into planting. If you give up and get lazy, you will find that your task only gets tougher and tougher. The roots of the weeds will just get deeper and deeper and you will find yourself overwhelmed. The initial seed-planting is only the beginning. But keep at it and wait patiently. A good garden yields nourishment and a beautiful fragrance that draws people in. And when they come, you'll have plenty to share; enough that they can take seeds from the harvest to plant their own gardens.