Turning the Soil
In general, I try not to think or talk too much about things I hate. I try not to hate things. But of course there are a few exceptions (spiders being one, but too creepy to even think of writing about). To those who know me, it likely comes as no surprise that I hate yard work. I would be perfectly happy to move to a city packed with people, where there were no holes for me to dig, or trees for me to trim, and not a single blade of grass for me to mow for miles. However, in his infinite wisdom and humor, one of the ways that the Lord has consistently given me “opportunities” to serve those I love is by helping with various forms of yard work. But of course, those things we hate are often the very things that God uses to open our eyes to what we may otherwise never see.
So, though I kind of hate it, I’ve begun to see the beauty in taming the wild. It feels good to hack back wild brush and bring order out of chaos. It feels good to mow a yard and make it clean. It feels good to harvest gorgeous greens from a garden plot you tilled with just a spade. And while I would probably still give it all up in a heartbeat, I love the beauty and truth that the Lord has woven into what it means to work the land, to both fill the earth, but also subdue it.
Agriculture plays such an important role in the metaphors and story of God in scripture. So much so that I wonder how many things city dwellers and suburbanites don’t quite get. There are so many things that we really just don’t understand if we have no concept of cultivating. Jesus uses many images taken from agriculture, especially of bearing fruit. He tells us repeatedly of the importance of fruitfulness, and the reality if we are not. But what I think we often miss are the ways through which good fruit is born. Maybe you’ve seen the difference between wild strawberries and cultivated ones. Maybe you’ve tasted wild onions. Surely not always, but often, wild fruits are paltry compared to those cultivated and cared for. But what does it take to cultivate? We live in a world where we are tempted to think that all pain and hardship is bad and to be avoided. We might see work as a necessary evil, but still evil. But it’s clear that in agriculture, as well as life in Jesus, fruitfulness requires the pain of pruning, the labor of watering, the toil of turning the soil.
Consider Jesus’ parable of the sower, in which a farmer goes and scatters seed on the ground, covering several states of soil. It’s easy to ask, “What kind of soil am I? Am I good soil in which the seed will produce good fruit?” There are many directions in which one could run with this image, but if we are unfamiliar with what it means to work the ground, we might miss an important point. A farmer or gardener would never imagine the parable of the sower as meaning that certain soil just IS good, or IS bad. Soil is never good for planting unless it has been cultivated, nurtured, tilled & prepared. Good soil doesn’t happen by accident.
It is through neglect that thorns choke out a seed that has begun to grow. It is by neglect and abuse that some soil is too hard for the seed of God to take root. We cannot make anything grow, but we can, and are in fact called to, do the necessary work to be soil that is ready to receive the Word of God and then cultivate it unto life.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
— 1 Corinth. 3:7-9
I want to turn the soil of my heart, being constantly ready to receive. I want to water what he gives, prune the wild parts of my spirit, cultivate the life and fruitfulness he wants for and from me. It’s a glorious thing that though we are powerless to make a seed grow, yet we are still called to join in the process, to imitate the hands of the great gardener, to care for and cultivate His kingdom come in our own lives and in those around us.
Maybe the parable of the sower is not a one time thing, but season after season the Lord scatters his seeds for you, waiting for you to turn soil, pull the weeds, clear the rocks to receive what he has. Are there ways that you want to see the Lord moving in you that you’re not seeing? Maybe there are thorns in the way. Are there ways in which the soil of your heart is packed down so much that you can’t receive the word and life that he has for you? Again, we make nothing grow on our own, but we are called to work with him, to prepare ourselves for him, to cultivate the soil of our lives and our hearts to receive and nurture what he has for us. Fruitfulness is a painful process sometimes, but it is worth it.
It’s amazing too to think that we have a part not only in the preparedness of our own hearts, but in that of those around us as well. There is certainly much labor and watering and sowing that happens when we live on mission serving and loving those around us and even those abroad. Because ultimately, life begets life. And the same Spirit that gives us life moves us to sow the same seeds in others. This is the heart of mission: the life of Jesus in us, laboring for life in others.
And it is the fruit itself that reminds us this labor is not in vain. When we bear fruit in our lives, it is sweet, and delicious, and life-giving. It is the Lord’s delight to produce his light and life in us. And he invites us to taste and see that He is good, and that the labor and the life that he calls us to is indeed the most bountiful beautiful thing we can do with our lives. It is indeed, life abundant.