I love to garden. I am still not especially proficient at it, and every season is a new trial and error. But there is something incredibly grounding and humbling about taking a small insignificant seed, giving it an environment to grow and a bit of attention and watching it transform into something that in turn produces something of value itself. I have also found that the more time that I spend in my garden, the more that I grow in my understanding of God, as well as become aware of my misunderstandings.
Fall is probably my least favorite time in the garden. I find it incredibly hard to pull out any plants that are still trying to produce. To be honest, I feel sorry for them. I know that they don’t have feelings, but seeing anything struggling and clinging to life pulls at my heartstrings. Despite this, I know that every fall there is a time that I must begin to work in order for my garden to be healthy.
There is nearly as much work to be put in during the fall to prepare the beds as there is in the spring. The difference being, in the fall I must wait to see the fruits of my labor. No instant gratification. Yet this step is so important in ensuring that the following season is even more bountiful than the prior. The planning for spring begins in the fall. Beds that failed to produce are amended or even abandoned. Flowers that grew to epic proportions are cut back and divided to allow the roots and tubers to regenerate. Entire beds are uprooted and laid down to feed the soil and protect it from invasive weeds for the next season. How closely this mirrors the cycles of the lives of a believer. How often are we in the “fall” satisfied that we still just are and barely producing. Then the Father comes along and uproots it all. It is so easy in that season to feel despair, being unable to see that He is laying ground for what we do not yet know, and that He is always working to make the next version even more beautiful and productive.
Gardening has also enlightened me to better understand scripture that I struggled with in the past. The story of the cursed fig tree is a prime example. For so long I struggled to find how this story fit in line with the nature of God as I knew Him to be. Mark 11:12-14 tells the story of a fig tree that Jesus and the disciples came across while traveling. Finding that the tree had no fruit, despite it not being the season, Jesus cursed the tree. In Mark 11:20-21, when they come back across the tree after leaving the temple, they have found that it has withered and died. These verses have troubled me. If it wasn’t their season, then why would Christ curse the tree? Once again, my misunderstand was a reflection of me and my heart, and not of God. I now know that there is so much more to this story. One that any person familiar with the tending of figs would know. As soon as a fig tree has leaves, a healthy tree will also produce edible blossoms and an early small edible fruit that attracts the pollinators needed to produce the fig as we know them. When Jesus came across the tree and found that it was without blossoms or early fruit, He knew that the tree would never produce fruit, the tree was either diseased, at the end of its life cycle, or in soil that would never feed it. In essence, it was already dead, it just didn’t know it yet. And even worse, the tree was leading others astray. The parallels to our own lives is so striking! How often do we appear to be “alive” yet fail to produce or even deceive others. How in line with God that He removes the dead, so that what comes next can be even more productive for the kingdom. I also don’t doubt that it pains Him as well because His love for us it so deep, but He is able to see what we can’t. He knows that the work is necessary to bring about something even more beautiful.