Gardening is peaceful and amazing because everything works together for one purpose! All of creation is dependent on the sun! Patience and gardening go hand in hand while we wait on the Lord! Psalm 27:13-14, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. It’s in the waiting that God prepares us and does the most inside us! It takes a lot of time preparing as we abide. You never know if the seeds will sprout or not or if the birds will come and snatch the seeds away. Even though we can’t see what is happening, we need to keep planting seeds by sharing God’s love everywhere we go with love and respect. Sometimes we might not get to see the results of the seeds we plant, but we need to keep sharing and living out love. As we stay humble and allow God to teach you, he will open your eyes to more of what God has in store for you. We’ve been looking for new ways to grow tomatoes because not all of the seeds grow or make it. So, we’ve been practicing cloning and one of our clones from last year is still growing strong in the window. All winter long We have been patiently watching for a tomato to grow! We love the beautiful green plant!
When I was a kid, we grew up right next to a Christian family who loved the Lord. Our friends were as close like family. They went to a Christian school and shared everything with us! We sang songs, played and talked about Jesus! We never know how much God does through relationship, and I can see how God prepared our hearts through loving relationships when I was young. I always wanted to go to church camp but could never go! One summer, someone blessed our family and I finally got to go and experience a day camp! I jumped in head first and my heart has high expectations that God is going to do something awesome! Yes, he did exactly that! My life is forever changed! I desperately went seeking God with all my heart and I found him! (Jeremiah 29:13) God brought so many people who loves the Lord around our family, and it’s amazing to look back and see how God places everyone including children exactly where he needs them to be to accomplish his purpose and plan! My friends probably didn’t know the impact they made in our lives as they shared everything they learned each day from school! God worked through them by sharing the good news to us about Jesus when we were just kids. This impact is like a domino effect! They probably don’t even know how much it helped them grow in understanding of what they were learning! As they shared they grew too because they looked forward to sharing more with us! Today, they are my brother and sister in Christ! My brother in Christ grew up to be a Pastor! Proverbs 20:11, “Even small children are known by their actions, so is their conduct really pure and upright?”God knows everything you do when adults aren’t looking!
I often think about the fig tree parable as this tomato plant never seems to produce any fruit (Luke 13:1-9) God loves us so much that he is patient with everyone not wanting anyone to perish! The fig tree can’t produce any fruit on its own! Just like we cannot produce fruit without God! He is the gardener who prepares our hearts to receive him, but we need to make a choice to accept or reject Jesus’ free gift of salvation! It’s when you become God’s child that you become rooted in Him! Jeremiah 17:7-8, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. 8They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” The amazing endless flow of love changes us from the inside! It’s constant care over us is special and unique for each person. We need to feed the spirit God’s living word and be in relationship with others so fruit will grow! When we are rooted in God it’s like a water hose forever turned on always flowing living water in us! This will draw all kinds of beautiful relationships to flourish together in the church like honey bees and butterflies in the garden.
God has designed everything to be in relationship! It’s hard to pollinate each flower on the tomato plant on your own! Yes, you will get one tomato or a few, but not much! When you follow Jesus and allow him in your heart, your mind and heart will start to change. You once were living for your kingdom, (me and myself and I) but now you will be doing everything For God’s kingdom! His kingdom comes and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven (love God and love others). God draws us through his creation! The honey bees are a part of God’s design through relationship and will help produce a mass production of fruit! I’m thankful for the honey bees God brings through fellowship in the garden and the body of Christ (Church)! Everyone is so very valuable as we each do the purpose God called us to do! We are dependent on God and not ourselves! Depending on God brings him maximum glory! Ephesians 2:8-9, “8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.” It takes a lot of patience to pollinate each flower by hand because the flowers open and close at particular times of the day and die so quickly! This is because we are not meant to do things all on our own! The fig tree was all alone and could not produce fruit! Instead of cutting it down, he was patient! Jesus says his grace is sufficient and I’m so thankful for his grace! As we live out grace and patience with everyone including the people who purposely splash you in the pool! The soil around their heart will soften but it takes time and patience! Only God knows the day and hour of Jesus’ return and he doesn’t want any person to perish! It is only God who can change hearts! We are to love others deeply, through an overflow of endless love that God pours in us and onto other people!
We might think the small things in our life produce nothing, and what we do for others are small, but our thoughts are not His thoughts, our ways are not God’s ways. (Isaiah 55:6-7) I’m so thankful his thoughts are Not our thoughts. This is why we are secure in him and not dependent on our own ways! He knows each person and loves them deeply! That’s why Jesus rebuked the disciples when they asked if he wanted them to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them (Luke 9:51-54). Jesus knows everything and we don’t! He is very patient with not only us but all people who don’t know the love of God yet! When we live out the patience Jesus has for us, they will want that too! Jesus came here to physically to seek and reach those who are lost! He came to bring us back to himself to be in relationship with Our Heavenly Father through Him! We need to set out hearts on things above where Christ is seated, God’s one and only Son! He did this because he loves us so much! The work we do that seems small, like a mustard seed, but is the largest tree! The smallest of seeds (details in life and unseen things) most likely are the ones that produces the most fruit which brings God glory! He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32). His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven!
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
clouds are full of water,
they pour rain on the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where it falls, there it will lie.
4Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.
5As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.
6Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Deuteronomy 31:8
It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard. 2He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.4Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.
Luke 13:6-9
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Isaiah 27:1-11
1In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea. 2In that day:
“Sing about a fruitful vineyard.
3I, the LORD, am its keeper;
I water it continually.
I guard it night and day
so no one can disturb it;
4I am not angry.
If only thorns and briers confronted Me,
I would march and trample them,
I would burn them to the ground.
5Or let them lay claim to My protection;
let them make peace with Me—
yes, let them make peace with Me.”
6In the days to come, Jacob will take root.
Israel will bud and blossom
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7Has the LORD struck Israel as He struck her oppressors?
Was she killed like those who slayed her?
8By warfare and exile You contended with her
and removed her with a fierce wind,
as on the day the east wind blows.
9Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for,
and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this:
When he makes all the altar stones
like crushed bits of chalk,
no Asherah poles or incense altars
will remain standing.
10For the fortified city lies deserted—
a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken.
There the calves graze, and there they lie down;
they strip its branches bare.
11When its limbs are dry,
they are broken off.
Women come and use them for kindling;
for this is a people without understanding.
Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them,
and their Creator shows them no favor.