A new season is starting. The ground is thawing. Gardeners are starting their seeds indoors, local nurseries are opening their doors with bright flowers. It can be easy, especially for newbies in the garden world, to get lost in the splash of color. So where to begin?
For starters, you need to set aside the SPACE
Space - the yielded surrendered kind - must precede all, even the seed.
I've heard it said that the journey is always more important than the destination; the correct process valued above the final achievement. In growth; the land wins over the harvest. Yes, it is also important in preparation for a garden to clear the debris, rocks & nutrient sapping weeds. The selected spot must have adequate water drainage, good soil, sunlight etc. But let me lay aside this myth... even if everything isn't in perfect condition...I've seen plants grow, even fruit.
How?
Because it has surrendered SPACE, even if it is just a little.
I have seen fruit grow in weeds - watermelon (great story). I currently have a discarded raspberry bush that found survival on a rocky path. No, not ideal, but it has happened. See, the biggest messes can become purposeful simply by setting aside, or find space for a higher purpose.
Conversely, unsurrendered good soil turns wasteland. It doesn't take long for opportunistic seedlings to drift via wind & take hold of the soil. Or good land that has been worked without rest turns desolate. I'm reminded of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:4). They had space, man power, an effective idea, team work, tools, but the result was fallow land, scattered & confused people simply because they didn't set it all aside for a higher purpose.
I compare a garden to my heart. Many are the plans & figurative weeds/rocks inside. Unless I continually start each day, each endeavour, each thought & each next step with the yielding of the space, I will toil to built my tall towers of purpose in vain.
Surrender EACH step, not just the first.
The good news is that God transforms yielded spaces, however rocky, into good soil.
In fact He is the only one who can.
We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer.
People may be pure in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their motives.
Commit your actions to the LORD, and your plans will succeed.
The LORD has made everything for his own purposes.
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
The LORD detests the proud; they will surely be punished.
Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin.
By fearing the LORD, people avoid evil.
When people's lives please the LORD, even their enemies are at peace with them.
Better to have little, with godliness, that to be rich and dishonest.
We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.
Proverbs 16: 1-9
