Intro:
Hi, this is Dorette with your dailyeword. I love this time of year, because it’s tomato time. Red, ripe, delicious tomatoes are plentiful and ready for picking. Gardening has some great spiritual lessons attached to it, and now would be a great time to learn about them. So with your spiritual encouragement from my garden, here is your dailyeword.
There are some important lessons we can learn from the garden, so I think I should share my vast knowledge with you!
1. If you wait to long, you might miss the opportunity. Sometimes we are slow about things for legitimate reasons, but often if we wait too long on some things we will miss an important opportunity. In our area, with a shorter growing season, we want to have things in the ground in time to actually harvest them.
2. Be selective about what you plant. Too many varieties of too many plants give you an over abundance that might go to waste. This is also true of life. If you are too thinly spread, you can’t do any job to the best of your ability. Streamline!
3. Maintain. If you don’t pull the weeds, you might not be able to find the plants! It works in the home too. You might not be able to find the keys, because they are hidden beneath a pile of papers (weeds!). Find a solution that works for you to deal with weeds (and clutter) on a day-to-day basis.
4. Water. Plants don’t survive without water, and neither do you. Hydrate your plants and your body. Priority #1-Water your spirit with the “water” of the Word.
5. Stir up the fallow ground. The soil around your plants needs to be turned over to get more nutrients into the growing plant. As humans, we need our fallow ground stirred too. Don’t get too comfortable just doing what you normally do…..shake things up. Be spontaneous, be creative, do something out of the ordinary. You might surprise yourself!
6. Stay in the sunlight. Plants need to see the sun to grow, and you do too! The only difference is the sun you need is spelled SON! Let the SON in, and shine your light so the whole world can see.
7. Be fruitful. It is of absolutely no use to plant something and not expect a harvest. I plant flowers to grow flowers, I plant vegetables to grow vegetables. If we want a harvest from our life…we need to be planted. Find a place to grow and bear fruit! That means finding a great local church to be a vital part of.
Then GROW to your hearts content. Our key scripture this week is found in Mark 4:14-33. I want to encourage you to be good soil that produces 100 fold!