grow your garden
Today I rallied my kids, grabbed some shovels and a rake, and out we went in our front yard to pick some weeds.
I had us start in one small corner, carefully pulling one weed at a time. It wasn’t long before my kids became hot and disinterested, their weed-pulling more and more erratic. Soon they wandered off to play, and I was left hunched over and sweating as I tended to my little plot of earth.
At first, I was proud of all the work I was doing in my corner, but after a while, my focus shifted to the rest of the yard and how much more there was to do. That’s when the overwhelm set in.
As my eyes took in the scene and the countless number of weeds, all I could think was, this is going to take forever.
One of my favorite ways to think about Jesus Christ is as a gardener. I love the visual of Him bent over in the dirt, His hands running through the soil as He cares for His creations. In the scriptures, Christ asks us to consider the lilies and to watch how they grow (Matthew 6:28), noting that if God clothes the grass of the field, if He takes care of each plant in every stage of growth, how much more aware is He of our spiritual gardens—the fragile new shoots that need protecting, the weeds that need pulling, each and every one of our flowers so bright with color?
Sometimes I get too caught up in my own weeds. As a semi-recovered self-help junkie, I’m prone to looking for the next great thing that promises to help me establish good habits while throwing out the bad ones. This puts me in a constant state of uprooting; I want to pull out all of my weeds at once.
But lately, I’ve felt my Savior in the dirt beside me, stilling my hand on the shovel as He shows me a better way. A gentler way. As the Master Gardener, He is never impatient. He doesn’t rush from one area of my life to the next, frantically yanking up fistfuls of weeds. Instead, He’s slow but steady in every move He makes, tenderly pointing out sections that could use a little work—always with kindness, never with shame. But He’s not just focused on digging up my weeds, He’s also busy planting good seeds.
The seeds of faith. Of hope. Of patience and love.
He tirelessly seeks to sow confidence, charity, and grace within me because He’s not just a God of removal but one of renewal as well.
Today, after tending to that little corner in my front yard, I stood up and wiped my face, pausing to look at the rest of the yard. This time, instead of focusing on the overwhelming amount of weeds and all the things I wanted to change, I looked at the landscape as a wild and living thing. My eyes drank in the sight of the bright yellow flowers blooming in abundance, how they burst out of the sage green bushes, their leaves the perfect soft shade of spring. I looked at the round barrel cacti with their tiny purple flowers and the young saguaros that have tripled in size since we planted them eight years ago.
My front yard is a riot of color and life, and as I stopped to appreciate it for a moment, I felt the Spirit witnessing to me that the landscape of my life is just as beautiful.
Even with the weeds.
And with Christ as my gardener, He will help me grow. Slowly, just as I’m meant to. This is the work that He loves—even if it takes forever.
I know that He will help you grow, too. Just give Him the shovel and let Him move.
Then watch in wonder as you start to bloom.
