Master Gardener

About every morning, I go out to the backyard and check out the garden.  How has it changed overnight?  Have the blossoms started to wither and become veggies?  Are there any pests eating on the plants? Does it looked parched and in need of water?  Should I add some more fertilizer, pull some weeds, etc?   As I do a little gardening I can’t help but think of the Master Gardener  Himself.

There is a spiritual parallel to each of these gardening practices that is very, very real when you think about it.  God is looking at our lives carefully too to see how our “garden” fares each day. He is very interested our lives bear fruit as well.  He is concerned growth is happening in us and desires any weeds be yanked out which are sapping us of spiritual vitality, He desires to refresh us with the washing of the water of the Word so that hard hearts, like packed and parched ground, are softened by the Scriptures.

Gardening demands careful inspection, constant attention, proper action to promote a good yield —  so do our spiritual lives.  Sometimes a weed is yanked as we get a little too close to the world and God uses His Word in a sermon, perhaps, to get our attention and pull it out. Weeds rob the good plant of the needed nutrients to thrive and produce their fruit.  The cares of this life are like weeds, when we worry and don’t trust. Materialism competes with, and if we’re not careful, and can shrink us spiritually when we come to value money over the Master Gardener !  Too much attention to a job, hobby, or relationship (which in itself may be fine) but when placed above God it or they become an idol !

So look well to the garden of your soul today. Insure that it is getting a good dose of the water of the Word as you read the Bible carefully and applicably.  Pull out those weeds which vie for your heart and give your heart the needed nutrients of prayer, fellowship with godly folks, attendance and service through a good church so that you are spiritually bearing fruit for the Master Gardener !