God gives us each seeds to plant and gardens to steward.

The little nudges of, “Go share your faith,” or “Buy them coffee,” or “Pray for them,” are the seeds. Small lil pieces of the way we live out our lives, but it’s so important because without seeds, the garden wouldn’t grow.

Our relationships and various environments are our gardens—there’s room to improve, but slowly it will become beautiful over time thanks to those seeds.

Now, if you’re a gardener or have had some experience with gardening, then you’ve probably had a vision of how you want your garden to look like. Maybe it’s full of bright colorful vegetables and fruits, or maybe it’s full of tall, leafy sunflowers. Or maybe, you’re more of a wildflower type of person, a mix of all the randoms—or opposite, everything is in neat, tight rows, organized perfectly.

A lot of times God is going to give us our garden, but it’s not going to look how we thought or hoped it would.

I want my spiritual and metaphorical garden to look like this:

It’s a bit chaotic, but in a fun, party way—with a ton of different kinds of flowers and it’s not restricted in any way at all.

Of course, sometimes my garden looks like this:

Kinda sad, kinda mopey. A lot of petals have fallen, it’s foggy so you can’t really see what you’re doing, and…it’s not a good time.

Our gardens might jump between the first option and the second—from beautiful and flourishing to dull and dead. But experiencing dry patches is nothing to be ashamed of. It just shows that we, as gardens and humans, need something to help us grow:

A gardener.

John 15 draws a beautiful image of this:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
John 15:1-4 NIV

Jesus is saying that He is the true vine—the source of life—and God is the Gardener. You know how you have to prune roses so that they can grow? The bad, unhealthy parts are being cut off so that the healthy parts can flourish.

We as Christians are healthy because of Jesus’ words, and when we remain in His words, then He will remain in us. We cannot bear everlasting fruit by ourselves because we are of human nature and a sinful world, but when we are connected to Christ and God, we are connected to the life source of healing and fulfillment.

This brings me to my next point: while we are connected to Christ, the Vine, we must make sure that we are cutting off the parts of ourselves that are unhealthy and bringing us down. That might look different for you than it does for me—maybe it means stopping hanging out with a toxic friend. Maybe it means stopping consuming content that’s not beautiful or beneficial to your faith.

What we expect our gardens to look like in the end might be different than how they actually end up—you might want your garden to be have perfect rows and be organized, but God might end up giving you an eclectic, chaotically beautiful garden. In the end, we will see that all He makes is beautiful.

You might have caught what I said about planting seeds and stewarding gardens—so what does that mean for us if God is our gardener?

Well, let me say this: if you are letting God do all the trimming and cutting and planting, then you will not grow. And I say this because God isn’t going to hand that to you just like that—you have to work to do those things. It takes a lot of dedication to cut those habits, to leave those people, to move on from grudges. And God will not do that for you, because while He is a good, loving God, He is also a teacher and a father and He is going to show you the way to do this.

Now what about planting seeds?

God is going to give you opportunities, like I said earlier in this post. Those opportunities might feel intimidating, but that’s a good thing. Seeds of faith are challenging to plant, right?

What if they make fun of me? What if they tell me to stop? What if it goes horribly wrong?

If any of those things happen, know this: that’s okay. Because you did exactly what you were supposed to do: plant a seed.

Planting seeds makes people think, “Hey, she was kind to me when I told her to stop talking about God. He paid for my food even though I’m a stranger. That couple was respectful after I mocked their religion.”

These seeds make people think, thinking makes them curious, and curiosity—no, it did not kill the cat—provides yet another way for another seed to be planted until BAM!

There is a garden growing around them that they just can’t ignore.

What people do with their gardens and seeds is their choice, but we can be examples of people who tend to our gardens with care and love and do the same for others. (Luke 10:27)

As I close this post, I want you to reflect: what is something that is bringing your garden down? Is it a creature that’s biting off the good flowers? Maybe a sneaky lil weed that’s choking your plants? Or maybe, is it the fact that you are not tending it the way you should be?

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this post!
~Willow