Lessons From the Garden

"I said, 'Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.' - Hosea 10:12 NLT"

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We are planning to begin working on our backyard landscaping projects, and I ran across this post from 3 years ago about landscaping the front yard. My history repeats itself in a timely fashion!

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I can't work in a garden without thinking of this life verse. While I love the finished product, and anticipate a future flowerbed filled with lovely things, I have to remember the process it took to get to today—assessing what was there to start with, determining what changes needed to take place and what steps (and time and money!) it took to get it where it needed to be, and remembering it will take more work tomorrow...next week...month...year!

Weeds will grow, I will need to watch for whatever comes to snatch the tulips, I will have to water in dry seasons. Could I have lived with a sparsely planted, poor-soil-filled flowerbed? Well sure! But it's so much nicer now, and in addition to adding value to our home, I see it adding value to our neighborhood, since the neighbors all see it from their yards.

My heart is the same way. I can keep it the same, never ask God what improvements can be made, never allow Him to break up the fallow ground of it.

I've had seasons like that...you too? I was pretty selfish, and had a "love it or leave it" attitude. Nothing beautiful was planted, or I didn't nurture it and it was wasting away. It was ugly, and others may have seen potential, but no one dared try to work. But people prayed. I prayed, eventually. God worked little by little and in His time I was ready for new seeds to be planted for new fruit.

He still has work to do in me, and I want Him to! I want new fruit to grow in new seasons of life! He is The Master Gardener!

#marinaskitchentable

#hopewriters

#wordworshipwrite

#hosea

#lifelessons

#lifelessonsfromagarden

#marinasmorningmeditations