A few years ago, I moved across the street from my sister, Andrea. It’s been so much fun! Last summer we decided to join forces and plant a garden together using her garden beds and my lawn for maximum growth and sunlight. We prepped, we planned, and we set out to plant an epic garden: kale, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and more!
I was most excited about the sunflower bed I wanted to plant in one corner of the yard. I have spent the past few summers among sunflower fields in Spain and I fell in love with these giant beauties. We already had some sunflower seeds in a packet, and so I got to work. I knew that they needed to be planted 6 inches apart because they use each other’s presence to grow vertically. I must have planted at least 24 sunflowers in a neat little grid! We were so proud of ourselves, and it felt like we were making our late grandma Nancy, a master gardener, proud as well.
Well, imagine our surprise a month or so later when something not quite resembling sunflowers started to grow in the corner. Instead of growing vertical, this supposed sunflower patch was curling and vining, growing horizontal, eventually taking over my poor neighbor’s yard. A month later and it was clear: these were squash, not sunflowers. And squash seeds should not be planted 6 inches apart! It was a mess. We did everything right for sunflowers, but not for squash. Master gardeners we are not.
Today’s passage is about how God loves His children and because of this, disciplines them. Perhaps another way to say this is that the Lord is pruning us, like a master gardener tends to her plants. The master gardener knows the difference between what a sunflower needs and what a squash needs. She knows that sometimes she needs to prune back a flourishing plant to make room for something better and more beautiful to grow. And sometimes, she knows she needs to cut off the dead, dying, and bloated bits because they will hurt the plant’s integrity if they remain connected. The plant doesn’t know why it’s being pruned but trusts the gardener to know what’s best.
It makes me wonder if we trust God to know what’s best during those seasons of pruning and discipline? We can. He loves us: His beloved children.
For reflection:
- What is something you have been nurturing in your life that you need to prune or trim back so that God’s will can truly grow in you?
by Liz Carver
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