Fiona Veitch Smith

A Gardener’s Gospel - Week 13

At last, my long-awaited holiday has come. Seven days in a farm cottage will do wonders for my emotional, spiritual and physical health. It should do my lawn some good too. The Hound from Hell is also going on holiday – not with us. So yesterday morning, with the dog shipped off and the family about to ship out, I slipped outside, grabbed a bag of compost and strewed it over what was left of my lawn. A quick rake and scatter of grass seed and the lawn was prepped for recovery.

Emergency repairs

Yes, I should have done more. The ground should have been scarified and left to breathe, and I should have watered it all in, but I didn’t have time. I pray it will be enough. The box of the lawn repair kit promises ‘new growth within seven days’ – and that’s all it’s going to have. I’ll need to figure out how to keep the Hound from Hell off it when we return.

As I was scattering the seed I couldn’t help thinking of the Parable of the Sower:

A farmer went out to sow his seed. Some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on stony places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Matt 13:3-8

Over my 27 years as a Christian (I first responded to God’s call when I was 11) I’ve seen people who fit into all of these categories.

People of the Path

The seed that falls on the path struggles to find root in soil hardened by years of travelling. People of the path believe they know where they’ve come from and where they are going. Lucy (not her real name) was once my boss. I really looked up to her: she was beautiful, gifted and heading very quickly towards the top of her profession. When I scattered seeds before her, she simply brushed them out of her way. With her eyes focused on where her path was leading, she had little time, or, as she thought, even less need for God in her life.

People of the Stones

Cindy was a troubled soul. Married young and divorced soon after, this young woman tried to take her life despite having a four-year-old daughter who needed her more than life itself. One night, sitting in her car outside my parent’s house, she poured out her heart and asked me for help. I scattered some seed and told her about God. Immediately it began to take root and for the next few days I saw this young woman bloom with the promise of who she could be. Unfortunately, I was just visiting and a week later had to go back to university. I tried to arrange for Cindy to go to church while I was away, but it’s hard to disciple someone remotely. Six months later she had turned her back on God and her face towards her old life. There were just too many stones in her soil.

People of the Thorns

Carmen is a Christian. She gave her life to God as a young teenager but now, in her late 20s, is struggling to live a Christian life. The Bible says she shouldn’t have sex before marriage, but God has not yet provided her with a husband. What is she to do? Carmen considers herself a ‘professional’ person, but her church is more blue-collar than white. She’s shifted around a lot, trying to find ‘people like her’, but time and again, she’s disappointed. At work she’s ashamed to tell her colleagues she’s a Christian as the only ones she knows are embarrassingly un-intellectual. So like the seed in the thorns, Carmen struggles to bear fruit.

People of the Soil

I once led a youth group and spent a lot of time nurturing a few young women. One of them, Angela, had soil so well prepared by the Holy Spirit that when I scattered the seed it took root, grew and within a few years, she was leading the youth group. Fifteen years later, she is still hungry for God.

I would like to think that this is where I belong too. The word of God has taken root in my life, and, I know, I’ve borne fruit. I know too that at times I’ve allowed a path to run through me, thorns to choke and stones to clutter. Thorns and stones can be removed and paths bulldozed up, but it takes time, effort and co-operation with the Great Gardener. By God’s grace, he has prepared my soil well. Now I look forward to the harvest.

Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law meditates day and night. He is like a stream planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers.
Psalm 1:2-3

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