A Flourishing Faith

When my family was young, we had an amazing garden every summer! We planted about an acre of sweet corn and about an acre and a half of vegetables. All summer long our garden provided just what we needed. In the fall, canning and freezing food was a full-time job in my kitchen! It was a productive family project; with a little effort and planning, it grew into a money-saving adventure.

Last spring, my son decided to grow a garden to help his family. He is living in the house he grew up in, so the land was all there, just not as cultivated as it was years ago. He had a farmer come and disk the plot, then he began planting. I could have told him that raking the ground to get all the weeds and rocks out might have been good. But no, he was the “fahma,” as he used to say when he was little and was convinced he could do it himself.

They didn’t plant corn the way we used to do it. We had a farmer come in and use his planter to till the ground and place the corn seeds. It was evenly done and grew into straight rows. We kept it weed free with a small cultivator and it took only a few minutes to run up and down each row with that machine.

My son decided that involving the whole family was a good idea, so they planted the corn themselves. One of them went down a row (there was no guiding string involved) plunging the end of a shovel handle into the ground. Following right behind were two kids with sacks of corn and the kernels were dropped into each hole. Right behind the planters was a person with a rake, who pushed the dirt over the hole (which was about eight inches deep). When he told me their process, I had to laugh to myself and wonder what this garden would look like when it grew.

To say the least, the rows were not straight because they hadn’t used a guiding string. The weeds grew up but the rows were so close that no cultivator could fit! Also, weeds were growing about as fast as mosquitos in the spring. Hardly anything grew because animals could either dig the plants out or eat the tender green leaves because there was no fence to keep them out. So much for the fahma! But I’m sure it was a great adventure for the family.

A little planning goes a long way; using the right tools is a great help, too. Just like planning and cultivating a flourishing garden, we need to cultivate our faith by reading God’s Word and sticking to a planned Bible study. Randomly picking passages is not the way to go. Dig deep to learn the story behind the story or the plan behind God’s purpose. Be a planter with a plan and let God weed out the things in your life that keep it from flourishing!