I’m not a gardener. (I know you’re shocked; I see you eyeing those grape-and-crimson-colored flowers above. But honestly, Wal*Mart handed them over to me just like that.)
When I say I’m not a gardener it’s 1) because my history has been one of killing plants instead of helping them live and, 2) I’m impatient. Enough already of the watering and sun and all; gimme more than dirt. Lemme see growth.
I feel a bit like a forth-grader who is sent home with a Dixie cup, dirt and a seed to teach her valuable lessons on agriculture with a side of patience. And that little 9-year-old goes home with cup in hand, plops down on the front porch step and sobs because she has no superpowers to make it grow at microwave-speed.
Yet as transformation and life percolates under the surface in the flower box on the front porch, my eyes are left unprivy. This wonder occurs in other places, too. In a cocoon during a month-long wait. In the womb over 40 weeks. In the tomb during a dark three days.
In my heart during this season.
And so I’m learning a few things, in Gardening 101.
God’s not nearly in the hurry that I am for growth. I see a fertilized rectangle of uniform brown and, daily, I’m begging it to sprout. The days drag on without a hint of green. I start to wonder if I’ve over watered. Or under watered. Or put seeds too close together and they’re duking it out underground, with some now unconscious.
But God isn’t worried. He’s ordained for each of His seeds, and for His children, just the right conditions—sun, rain, and sometimes manure—that will grow us into His likeness.
God knows more and, therefore, I need to seek His direction. Somehow I forget my lack of knowledge and often just jump into the dirt. Sure, I don’t know what I’m doing, but fevered activity counts, right? But I end up looking like Pigpen on Peanuts, with a swirl of mess and stink swirling around me. Instead, what if I paused and asked God what He’d like me to do today? Shall I water? Or pull weeds? Or plant more seeds? Or go help someone else with their garden? Or…simply rest?
God makes it grow. I’m disillusioned to believe otherwise. Yet I’m called His fellow worker. “[Paul] planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers” (I Corinthians 3: 6-9).
The more I play gardener, the more I am humbled as I see how nothing I do produces growth. Yet, the more I play gardener, the more excited I get to play a role, to have a stake in the life God creates. And my life gets involved; I’m no longer an innocent bystander.
But, ultimately, I think God might be making me a gardener because, as I play in the dirt, I look a bit more like my Father, the true Gardener.
