Gardening Parables for the Kingdom of God

All of creation is a parable of God's truth. Someone said recently that a minister should address others like a gardener handles their garden - that plants take great care and careful handling. This is true. But their point was misguided. A good gardener doesn't wimpishly handle plants all the time. There are many vigorous and dynamic actions that must be taken quite often for the sake of the crop. Many gardeners will tell you not to be too shy about handling your plants.

There are many types of plants grown for food, some planted in the ground and some in containers, as well as many other variations of these two including aquaponics, hydroponics... Each one has their own set of methods for handling plant-specific needs.

For example, in a ground garden, first you have to till the ground really well, which is hard work and at first destructive. You gotta break up your fallow ground so it can be sown. EDIT: I just heard of No Dig gardening which carries a lot of godly implications. Check this movie out.) If you want less weeds you might need to lay down something that will smother out everything that grows for a couple of months. You may even need to mulch after planting later (Please DO NOT USE ROUNDUP!). Then you have to germinate seeds under just the right conditions. Some seeds require freezing first, some require the hulls to be pulled off in order to be able to grow, some require only planting and waiting. Then once a seed has sprouted you usually need to do very little. Just give it the proper space and conditions to grow and let it do its thing for a while. When it is rooting and is beginning to grow more rapidly you must begin feeding it the proper fertilizer. Each plant requires a different kind of fertilizer and feeding regiment. For fruiting plants you need to give them more nitrogen at first to spark vegetative growth so that they can bear much fruit. Then you must monitor and prune them in order to make sure their fruits set in the best places. This ensures the fruits are the best quality they can be at the sacrifice of smaller "sucker" branches that zap plant energy and take away from overall yield. Once the plant is in the flowering phase you need to switch to a blooming phosphorus fertilizer. All this needs to be done before you even see any fruits appear.

There are first fruits on most flowering plants that can bear large fruits if left on the plant to ripen. These usually emerge from the central axial stem. But these flowers generally are cut off on many fruit-bearing plants because they will delay the formation of and reduce the energy devoted to secondary flowers that will set on the successive branches. That is where the most uniform fruits come from. Some plants require caging or staking. Others require topping so they bush out. Some you can plant and let grow without much work at all.

We can see that raising a garden of different crops requires much hard work, training and discernment. It is not a matter of just sitting back and letting them grow wildly. That would not be a very productive garden. Nor is it a rote set of simple methods for every plant. And it is not a good idea to go willy-nilly all over the place with a bunch of different experimental methods (unless it is an experimental project ;) For most gardens with the goal of being as productive as possible the gardener must know the plant, what it needs and how best to accommodate those needs with the tools he has or can acquire.

Let us not be lazy gardeners, but learn to focus our efforts in the right places by the leading of God's Spirit, who leads us into all truth. Let us till when we need to till the ground to set a foundation for our garden. Let us know what kinds of seeds we are dealing with and do what needs to be done so they can sprout. Let us gently raise our sprouts in the proper care. Let us know when to fertilize our starts, and when to prune them as they take off in growth so they can focus their energy in the right places. Let us know when to switch to a blooming fertilizer. Let us monitor for pests and weeds and not spray them with harsh chemicals that will later be ingested. Let us know when the fruits are ripe for the picking.

The earth is nearly ripe for the harvest. Summer is near. The marriage supper of the Lamb approaches. Those who have accepted the invitation and have overcome the world will have the privilege of being at the supper where Lamb is served as the main course, bread to sop the juices and wine to wash it down. Each of the ingredients for that meal requires a lot of tilling, pruning, harvesting. threshing, winnowing, grinding, treading, pressing, slaughtering, cooking and, most importantly, praying. Do not be deceived. There is much work to do and it is not always comfortable and easy. Prepare yourselves all ye faithful.