The Garden, Idle or Idol?
It all started this morning when I looked at the miniature old-fashioned
pink rosebud, faded and stiff, taped to the side of the marble lamp on my
breakfast table. It’s winter now but the delicate fragrance remains and reminds
me summer will return.
Drought plagued the summer past. Trees dropped their leaves early so their
trunk and roots could capture what rain fell. Flower seed bundles grew heavy as
petals fell. Oak trees produced larger
acorns for strong seeds. All lie buried in winter’s senescence.
This
is the season I do my homework. I make a plan. I calculate. I expect setbacks.
I practice patience. This is the story
of earth. It’s the story of our faith. “Except a seed falls to the ground and dies,
it cannot live again.” (paraphrase)
Faith tells me its time to be still and know that nature repeats itself. “While the earth remains, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”.
(Genesis 8:22 RSV).
But when every fiber in my being pulses with
excitement and the rake and the hoe start their curtsy on the garage wall, I know it’s time! Dig in the dirt. Plant those seeds. And I do!
Nothing exceeds the thrill of working in the garden for me.
But
a friend cautions, “Don’t you know that can become an idol?”
“And
what is the definition of an idol?” I
had to know. “An idol is what you desire more than anything else. An object of
extreme devotion,” the definition reads.
“So what you are giving all your energies, free time, and full attention
to can become an idol,” she cautioned me.
“Planting a garden? Surely
not,” I assured her. “The joy in planting seeds produces such blessings for
which I praise the Creator when they
grow because he gives the soil and every drop of rain and ray of sunshine.” She
left me alone .
But it’s winter now.
I can’t get outside in the garden. Outside it’s cold and very dark. My finances,
my job, my health, any number of things
wrap me in a shroud like a seed. Only I’ll
never sprout.
Instead, I choose to rest in the thought that I am not in
control. The Creator is. I petition him
to bring good
from bad, joy from sorrow and hope from despair. I thank him for listening as I
continue to pray and wait. Wait and pray.
Spring will return.
And
when it does, I work. I rise up early to
mix the soil and remove the weeds. I prune and I harness pests. I catch my
breath. An idol? No. A tender reminder that it’s a partnership, at one with
the Creator. I hum the Sunday School
chorus as I work:
“I
dig, dig, dig a hole in the ground and plant the seed just so,
I pat the dirt and water it well and put away
the hoe.
I
watch for the sun and the rain to come but this one thing I know-
I
can dig a hole and plant the seed. . . but God makes the garden grow!”
When I climb beneath the covers at night I
thank Him for being the soil beneath my feet as I work and rest and sleep, awaiting
the ‘touch of the Master’s hand’.
