How Does Your Garden Grow?    

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other.  John Bunyan

We always had a garden when I was growing up.  Mom and Dad would plant vegetables and they would always give each of us a row that would be just for us.  When spring came we weren’t home watching TV.  We were out in the yard planting our row. 

I always loved flowers so I would plant zinnias in my row.  They were kind of hard to mess up.   I mean it didn’t take any great gardening skills or green thumb to grow zinnias and they lasted throughout the summer.  We would go out each week and weed and water the garden.

My brother liked watermelon so that is what he chose to plant in his row.  I am not sure if watermelon was just not something that grew well in Louisiana because his plants looked beautiful but they didn’t produce the size of watermelon we expected. 

So my parents decided to help him along and bought a watermelon and put it in the garden on his row.  Back then when you bought a watermelon at the store they would take a marks-a-lot and write the price right on the melon.  The day we went out to the garden and saw that watermelon was pretty funny.  We all gathered around to look at and admire it.  The problem was one of us looked down and saw the price written on it.  Being kids we all were astounded how that watermelon grew with the price written right on it. 

When I thought of this long ago story it made me think of how each of us is a gardener.  God gives us seeds to plant.  The soil is the foundation that we plant the seeds in that help others come to know Him.  If we don’t add nutrients (our support) to the soil (those who don’t know Him) our seeds will not produce.  God also gives us tools to plant with (the Bible) and Living Water to nourish the plants.  

If we don’t fertilize the soil, plant the seeds, remove the weeds and water the plants they will not produce.  In other words if we don’t plant the seed of salvation in the sinner, encourage and show them who God is, walk beside them when trials and tragedies occur, and fill them with Living Water we will never produce the kind of fruit God cherishes.    

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I want to be a gardener of souls for Your Kingdom.  I don’t always have the right words to say or the right actions but I know with Your help I can plant seeds of salvation in others.  Thank you for giving me the tools I need to sow seeds that may one day produce in abundance. 

Scripture:  On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.  Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.  Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:1-9