SEEKING GOOD SOIL- Dec 22

“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Matthew 13:23

Two days past the solstice, my heart has returned already to thoughts of gardens.

While I relish my garden’s production of vegetables and fruits, they do not inspire winter dreams. For me, a preoccupation on production leaves gardening in the language of prose.

A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space — a place not just set apart but reverberant — and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry. ― Michael Pollan

While the world could greatly benefit from more who turn a spade in the simple prose of production, a plot of soil takes on that unique designation of garden when the production of that plot harvests emotions, feelings and meaning beyond the yield of any farm.

Garden poetry emerges through careful crafting of landscape elements with the intent to evoke an emotion. The unique gardener’s vision of selection and placement creates the sense of a privileged place which differentiates a garden from a plot of productive soil.

My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece. ― Claude Monet

Garden poetry inhabits my winter contemplation.

These contemplations have been revolving around a garden inspiration which came from a recent visit to Monticello. Monticello’s West lawn has a winding path bordering between the lawn and Thomas Jefferson’s various botanical plantings. Jefferson walked along this path as his mode of daily exercise.

Monticello’s West Lawn

Jefferson’s path is the inspiration for my North lawn.

While I currently do not need a pathway for physical exercise, I do need a pathway for spiritual exercise. I struggle for consistency in the spiritual discipline of prayer. Therefore, the privileged space I hope to create of my North lawn is a deeply personal masterpiece for my soul.

I’ve been dreaming and planning; drawing and erasing; researching and mulling over a prayer walkway. I hope to create a pathway that will lead me through a secession of prayers. As I walk along the pathway, there will be a variety of stations to lead me in my prayers for the various aspects of my life. Therefore, the selection of plants at each station of the pathway is essential to evoke the recollection and intent of the station.

I have been mulling stations for the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit; governments of the world, the United States, Idaho, and my county; the Church universal, ministries of the seven continents, my local Church; my immediate and extended families; others – friends and associates; sources of enmity and enemies; work and provision; deliverance from temptation – seven deadly sins; and the concerns of self.

The selection of plants and structures which will produce the desired recollection has been a delightful way to pass the dormant season. However, I have encountered a hindrance common to many a gardener. Many of the plants that I would like to select will not be happy in the environment that they would be forced into. I do not have control over the climate and only limited control of the soil. Therefore, my plant selection must be subservient to the climate and soil of the planting.

My mind always seems to wander back to the parable of the sower when I think about gardening.

Have you ever wondered the composition of good soil?

How much nitrogen or phosphorous does it have?
What is its optimum pH range?
Is it free draining or does the clay content need to be high?

Jesus tells us that good soil is that in which the seed of the Word of God has been planted and the person hears the word and understands it. This person then grows in that good soil to produce fruit and yields a hundredfold, or sixty fold, or thirty fold.

But is the soil the same for everyone?

Just has God has created a variety of plants that thrive in different environments; I believe He has created variety in His children specifically suited to the environments He intends to send them.

God has gifted some to specifically thrive in intense heat of lifting their candle high;

Others flourish in the deep shade of ministering to the oppressed, abused and depressed;

Some blossom in a free draining flow of new thoughts and opportunities;

Others bloom in the saturated conditions of single familiar passages.

The seed of the Word is the same for us all. However, I believe the characteristics that constitutes good soil varies as widely as the personalities of God’s children. We make a mistake when we assume there is a prescribed formula that ensures the Spirit’s work of sanctification in our lives. We can end up trying to force ourselves into an environment into which we were never created to flourish.

Sanctification’s wonderful discovery is learning the soil or soils that God has specifically designed us to flourish in. It is why some produce a hundredfold in foreign soil as missionaries. It is why some people can bloom in a calling that I could not comprehend participating. It is why some need new soil free from a polluted past.

Every Child of God has a bountiful place in our Maker’s masterpiece garden.  We just need to find the soil that is best suited for our soul.

 

PRAYER: Father, thank you for the variety that you have created in plants and people.  Thank you for creating and calling your people to all the environments of this world.  Lord, lead us by your Spirit to those soils in which we were designed to produce in the masterpiece of your redemptive plan.  Father, you are the Master gardener.  You have created a poetry in creation that we so often overlook.  All of creation proclaims the intent of you, the Master Gardener.   Open my eyes to see.   Help me to display you in all that I do and produce.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“MAKING A GLAD STREAM” – March 1

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.”  Psalm 46:2

I received an overview of rivers as I trekked across southern Idaho for a recent ski day.  I crossed the Snake River, which is a slow, wide, and meandering river that is not very inviting.  The Snake River is a dark muddy river where I live.  It is full of sediment washed from thousands of acres.  It cuts into banks of soil in its century’s long search of the perfect course.  Energy continually dissipates as soils are consumed along the river bottoms, producing an opaque soup that is not fit to consume.

Stuck in Customs / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

As I ascend into the mountain reaches, the rivers become narrow and hardened.  The soils have long ago been washed away and the underlying rock exposed.  Channels lie fixed between mountain ranges.  Water flows with vigor and energy.  The life-sustaining water tumbling across the rocks of these rivers and creeks glistening in the morning sun, inviting a refreshing taste.

The parables and other imagery of the Bible mixed and mingled as I contemplated these rivers that accompanied me in a weary descent from an enjoyable day spent sliding down a mountain.

I could see my life as a follower of Christ illustrated in the changing of these rivers.

I know that I live mostly oblivious to the majority of the deep spiritual realities all around me – like looking through muddy water.  The polluting influences of my flesh have long obscured the truths of the living water of Christ.  I get periodic glimpses of fleeting clarity to bolster my hope during those brief periods when my eyes clear of selfishness and the resulting murk of life.

The eroding work of the Spirit has continued through the years to churn away at the banks of my idolatrous world.  I meander spiritually through this life as the Spirit relentlessly undermines one unholy edifice after another.  It has always been messy when a bank of bad soil finally collapses into the rushing power of the living water.  Confusion and questions swirling in the obscured wash of a life being gouged deep.

Yet, the Spirit is faithful.  The flowing power of the living water has never diminished and the cleansing flush of the divine always brings clarity through reliance, restoring tranquility to the child, love by God.  The seemingly meaningless meandering of a life endlessly eroded is never futile.  God is accomplishing a concealed purpose within the sightless depths of our soul.

He is washing the bad soil of our flesh away to reveal the bedrock of faith.

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  (Matthew 7:24)

We are able to have a hope in the future only through a life firmly fixed upon the rock of Christ.  We can only find that rock through the hydraulic mining of the Spirit, removing layer after layer of bad soil from our lives.  The entire process of sanctification, being transformed from one degree to another into the image of Christ, is a messy and bewildering process.  We rarely can see through the muddy confusion of a life being hydraulically washed by the Spirit.

I have often been frustrated by the ostensibly random patterns to life.  I have wondered if I had jumped the banks of my purpose.  I have wondered why events have transpired in so unexpected ways.

By faith, I know that there is nothing random in the life of an heir of God (Rom. 8:16-17).

Maybe, all the chaos that we don’t understand is evidence to the continued work of God in our lives.

Maybe, the sudden bend in circumstance is another opportunity of the Spirit to remove the bad soil of our lives.

Maybe, the vigorous nature of suffering and disappointment is the living water driving deep into hidden crevasses of our soul to remove the last vestiges of rebellion.

We need to take heart through all trials and temptations because the Spirit of God uses those times to drive us onto the rock of our faith – Jesus Christ.  He loves us too much to allow us to build our lives on bad soil.  He loves us too much to leave us in our idolatry.  He loves us too much to allow us to continue meandering through life in an endless search for contentment.

It is because of love that He continues to wash us clean
– as painful as that might be.

My hope is that every child of God will look back at their lives and see a transformation as distinct as the difference between the Snake River and a mountain creek.

May we be washed clean and Christ exposed in every aspect of our lives.

May our course be gouged deep into the sure foundation of the King of kings.

May the living water flowing through our lives invite others to taste and see that the Lord God is so very good.

May the assurance of our salvation abound through the clarity of a life being continually washed by the word of God.

May our lives be streams that make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for the good work that you continue to do in my life.  Thank you for continuing to erode away at my selfishness, disobedience, pride, and discontent.  Lord, thank you for repeatedly bringing me back to the sure foundation of your Son, Jesus Christ.  Please continue your work in me.  Don’t leave me as I am.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.