Gardening brings me closer to God. There are several reasons that I say this. First, it brings us in direct connection with God’s creation. Second it is contemplative. You have time to think and just rest your mind as you do mundane tasks like weeding. Third, Jesus often used farming and gardening analogies in his parables and teachings.
This is time of year that I find stressful as a gardener. The seeds are planted. I can water and wait. The seeds I planted eventually start to poke their heads above the surface. But in the time they took to do that the weeds have also returned. I watch helplessly as the weeds pop up. I can’t wade into the garden and pick the weeds as I might step on a bud about to pop just below the surface. Or I might root up a tender shoot as I pull out a weed.
This is a time for patience. It isn’t my job to weed right now. I must wait until the plants are more established and ready to harvest. Then I can weed again.
God can’t remove all the weeds from my life, I must live with them and persist in growing and bearing the fruit I was planted to create.
Matthew 13: 29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds,
you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.
At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles
to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
Roberta Writes 