Dear Cornerstone Family,
As I nearly froze to death tossing the football with the boys on Tuesday afternoon, as the dark of night descended at 4:45pm (Shew, it’s going to be long winter for me), I gave myself permission to reminisce about longer, warmer days... like the time my Dad first tried his hand at gardening. He’d long expressed a desire to return to “mankind’s original vocation,” to get his hands dirty and grow his own food—to be a man of the earth. It was a desire that, to be honest, bewildered the rest of the family.
Dad was an accountant. Need I say more? He spent his days with numbers, pushing pencils, and keying calculators. It was difficult envisioning him with boots on his feet and a tiller in his grip. That said, he was a farmer by name. My Dad’s name is George. George is a combination of two Greek words meaning earth and work. Etymologically, he was destined to be a worker of the soil. In every other way...well, not so much.
Nevertheless, with help from neighbors who were real farmers, and the slave labor of his son (ahem), Dad eventually fulfilled his gardening dream. And though the dream only lasted a few years (turns out gardening is a lot of work), some of my fondest summer memories include walking the rows to see how the squash and zucchini were coming along, and if the tomatoes were starting to redden, and if the deer had gotten the best of the snap beans. (They always got the best of the snap beans.)
Call me nostalgic if you want, but there’s something magical about a garden. Soil, seed, water, sun and a little attention (okay, a lot of attention) and before you know it, you’re smelling fried okra cooking on the stove—the perfect late summer delicacy. (Is winter over yet?)
There’s a lot of lessons to be learned in gardening, but chief among them is the need for patience. My Mom used to say, “A watched pot never boils.” Meaning, time moves ever so slowly when you’re eagerly waiting for something to occur. Gardening can be a “watched pot.” The farmer plants in faith, trusting that in due time, by God’s grace, he will enjoy the fruit of his labors.
Not surprisingly, in describing the work of the kingdom, Jesus turns to agricultural metaphors time and again. Our hearts are like various soils (Matthew 13:1-9), faith is like a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20), and if we’d just lift up our eyes, we’d see the world is white with harvest and needy of laborers (John 4:34). As we tend the field before us, growth may be imperceptible, but we press on like farmers who, “...wait for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains” (James 5:7).
Like gardening, kingdom work can’t be hurried along. We must guard against weariness, knowing that in due time we will reap (Galatians 6:9). That’s a promise. Let’s just be faithful to do our part, and then watch the Lord of the harvest (Matthew 9:38) give the growth (1 Corinthians 3:7).
Your servant,
