How Does Your Garden Grow?

Springtime inspires thoughts of gardens and growth. All these green, growing things can serve as reminders to us of what we want to produce in our lives.

It’s spring! After months of looking at trees and bushes that, for all intents and purposes, looked dead, green is now the predominant color as I look out my window. And it gets me itching to get outside and plant flowers and seeds.

While I’ve been waiting for the rain to stop and the ground to dry out a bit (actually in our area, it needs to dry out a lot!), I’ve been observing some interesting lessons God provides in springtime’s outdoor realm. It’s interesting to see how some plants take off like rockets—my peonies seem to grow inches in a single day! Other plants—like my oakleaf hydrangeas—are slow and methodical as they carefully unfold their leaves to the sun. It’s also fascinating to observe how our burning bushes, which we trimmed so severely last summer, are seeing tremendous growth now!

Then there are the weeds

But always, year after year, the thing that I notice the most is the weeds! Weeds start growing, it seems, at the very first hint of spring. Long before I could think of planting seeds in my vegetable garden, those weed seeds from last summer are already putting down roots and sprouting greenery. If I’m not careful, I can have a crop of weed seeds ready to “harvest” before I get out my shovel!

I chuckled at a recent Reader’s Digest “Life’s Funny That Way” submission. Cy Coggins of Boerne, Texas, wrote that he had no clue which plants to keep and which ones to remove in his garden. “Until that is, my mother gave me this handy tip: ‘Pull them all up. If it comes back, it’s a weed.’”

Not very helpful advice—but too true! Dandelions and some other weeds are famous for being able to grow back if even a small piece of root is left in the ground.

It doesn’t take much to grow weeds! It doesn’t take much time, it doesn’t take much work, it doesn’t take much money!

But neither does it yield a very useful crop. Dandelion wine notwithstanding (and my husband tells me that from his family’s experience, it’s not very good!), you simply don’t get much out of a weed. There may be a pretty flower, but it lasts only a short time. It may be green at first, but it’s not very long before it turns brown and ugly. Or, instead, it may just spread more and more—taking over and choking out anything in its way!

The rewards of growth

Good plants, on the other hand, need careful attention. They need the right conditions to grow. They need the right temperature and the right amount of sunshine. They need fertile soil that is loosened and tilled and has good drainage. Seeds of good plants need to be planted at the right depth and at the right distance apart.

And the careful attention must continue throughout the growing months. You can’t just plant a garden and come back a few months later expecting to harvest. These good plants require watering during dry times. They need to have the competing weeds pulled out. Sometimes they need to be staked up or supported.

A good garden is a lot of work! But, oh the benefits when those good plants start to produce! Whether it’s the luscious tomatoes, tender green beans, sweet corn or beautiful flowers that are a feast for the eyes—good plants produce rewards.

Spiritual growth

The analogy is obvious. Weeds are our human nature run wild with no restraints. Left to themselves, they produce a crop of sin and misery.

The good plants, on the other hand, are the righteousness that we can plant with God’s help. We can produce fruit that will serve our family and friends. People in the world who walk by our gardens with their beautiful foliage, flowers and fruit can come to admire God’s work in our lives.

This time of the year is a wonderful time to remember what we want to grow in our lives. It takes time, effort and the help of God’s Holy Spirit; but it is so worth it! Pull up those weeds while they’re small. And plant the seeds of God’s way of life!

Becky Bennett is wife to Mike, mother to Heather and Erica, and proofreader to many Church of God, a Worldwide Association, publications.