MINISTERS MUSINGS

April 2009 MUSING

WELL ROOTED

Last Autumn I cleared a small patch in my garden and announced to my neighbour over the fence that I would try to grow a few vegetables and some rhubarb. When I came home one day and found a bag of well rotted manure sitting on my doorstep I realised that the information had been passed on and another neighbour who owns a horse had decided to make her contribution. It took me about an hour to prepare a patch and dig in the manure. Now, a few months later, the rhubarb is in and packets of seeds are waiting to be planted. Already I have dreams of perfect carrots and parsnips just waiting there to be harvested as and when I want them. I believe that those seeds cannot help but grow in such well prepared soil and can already smell the veggies cooking in a big pot of stew. They will have to be watched and watered and weeded and thinned out of course, and guarded against snails and slugs and other veggie loving predators. Ah well, here’s hoping.

There is a lot in the bible about gardening. After all, Adam was a gardener. It is lovely to watch things grow and flower and fruit. Wandering around my little garden is one of my great pleasures. All around are daily miracles of growth and maturity to be enjoyed and marvelled at.

The apostle Paul knew a thing or two about gardening and likened it to being a Christian In his epistle to the Ephesians he exhorts us to be ‘rooted and grounded in love’. Surely that is the spiritual equivalent of well rotted stable manure. The sad thing of course is that there are love destroying predators around just waiting to undermine our growth. That is why we need the loving hand of the Heavenly Gardener in our lives to protect, thin, weed and water us and enable us to mature into the sort of people He would have us be. Enjoy your gardening – both kinds.