Veggie Tales - Preservation

With the garden planted and the fencing up, my job is not finished. I wish! How do I keep my garden in good condition? How do I preserve it and care for it to ensure good crops? There’s still work to be done and lessons to be learned as I await the harvest.

Preservation.

As I’m writing this our weather has been in the 80s, with barely any rain so far this Spring. So when I think preservation, I think watering. As I planted the seeds, I noticed that the packets said they needed to be kept moist. That could mean watering them 1, 2, even 3 times a day until they grow roots deep enough to sustain the scorching sun. There’s something soothing to me about watering the grass, flowers, and garden. And it reminds me of an impactful teaching from Craig Mayes I heard at Kensington long ago.

Hebrews 6:7 says “Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.”

Farmers and gardeners know that rain is key to the survival of their crops. The same is true for our spiritual lives, our spiritual harvests. We need God’s rain - His Word, His Spirit, His Living Water - to fall upon us and nourish us so that we can grow.

So what does Hebrews 6:7 teach about God’s rain? First, when we drink it in it helps us to produce good crops, useful crops. Second, that the crops we produce are intended for our good and for the good of others. Third, that when we produce good crops we receive blessings from God.

But to me, the most important thing we learn from this verse is that God’s rain is “often falling.” Through His Word. His presence. His Spirit within us. God is available, accessible, and a generous provider of what we need. God’s rain falls on us frequently - constantly really. All we have to do is drink it in on a regular basis. I think of the spiritual disciplines or practices of Bible reading, meditation, memorization, prayer, fasting, solitude, etc. Those are ways we drink in God’s rain on a regular basis.

And like the seeds in my garden, I need to be watered every day. We all do. Without God’s living water on a daily basis, I know that I’m prone to wander in search of nourishment, comfort, wisdom, refreshment…or whatever…from other places…my own cisterns of water.

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13, NIV)

Picture a cistern. They come in many shapes and sizes, but I’m picturing one that is partially sunken into the ground, lined with cement or limestone to collect water. Because the water is stagnant, it gets kinda gross. Then when the lining cracks, water seeps out and the mud seeps in. No matter how hard I try to keep that cistern filled, all that remains is a gross, muddy puddle that’s unable to clean, quench, or refresh.

So I had to ask myself, what is the cistern that I keep returning to that never seems to satisfy? What do I need to do to exchange that broken cistern for God’s spring of living water, His rain that is often falling?

The alternative is hardened, sun scorched land that produces thorns and thistles, and hardened hearts far from God that produce rotten fruit. As Hebrews 6:8 goes on to say, “But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.” Worthless. Cursed. Burned. Ouch.

What is the condition of the soil of my heart? What am I doing to protect and preserve it? What am I using to water, and doing to keep it free from thorns? Am I producing the fruit God intended?

Boy, this is a lot of work…I sure hope the Lord is patient with me, and gives me a good dose of patience myself.