Gardening - Leigh Shutter

Today’s devotional comes from Leigh Shutter

Gardening

My yard smells like poop right now. I just walked out my front door, took a big breath of early morning air, and was assailed by the strong odor of manure! That will wake you up in the morning! Over the past few days we have put many back-breaking hours of hard labor into the yard. It has been transformed into a blooming, colorful paradise. We even painstakingly chose plants and flowers with delightful fragrances! And soon it will be... but right now it all just blisters and cow poop. 

I love gardening. I love how nature echoes God's design of life. Gardening always brings me "word of His unfailing love." Like my front yard, how many blisters have I caused my Savior as He worked elbows-deep in the crap I create!In my backyard, where we worked extensively last year, I can sit and enjoy the amazng scent of my jasmine vine. I take such joy from this vine, I have personalized her. She is so sweet-smelling, but so WILD! I want her to grow this way, to cover the fence that files along the back edge of the property. But instead of dutifully growing along this fence, she always thwarts my efforts by growing in the opposite direction towards the sun (the nerve!). So I'd stand there looking at her menacingly with pruning shears in hand and think, "Jesus, if you were standing here with these snippers, you could train this vine and it would look so much prettier! You would cut off every branch of this vine that does not bear fruit (or pretty-smelling flowers) and throw it in the fire. Because that's where it belongs! I wouldn't mind burning the whole thing down sometimes! " I guess gardening tends to make me a little dramatic.

Metaphorically in the bible, fire is purifying, cleansing. In the same way, our faith is purified by fire. It burns away "impurities" and leaves behind a purified product. When we stand in the fire of earthly struggles, everything that's not real gets burned away. The dirty slime that we've covered ourselves in to hide the treasure he created in the Beginning goes up in smoke. What's left will result in praise, honor, and glory to God when Jesus Himself is revealed!  1 Peter 1:7 Sounds like a violent process (I guess gardening makes Jesus a little dramatic, too!) But He does it so tenderly, gently, and completely. He knows that we are "but dust," and that while we live here on earth and are confined to these earlthly bodies we will always grow towards the shiny things like my wild backyard jasmine. We often forget that our true sustenance comes from our roots that are buried in Him. If we are cut off from the roots, we will wither and die; no shiny thing can save us.

A challenge for you: What is God pruning from your life through this lockdown? In what areas of your life are you seeing greater fruit because of this pruning? Will you give Jesus the shears and believe the smell of manure will become the sweet fragrance of flowers?

Leigh Shutter