In different parts of our yard, we have different gardens.  Allyson has a green gift, as those of you who know her are already aware.  Her mother kept an immaculate garden at their beautiful home for many years, and I think Ally could not help but fall in love with the earth’s splendor. 

Robin tirelessly toiled to keep the yard looking so incredible, and Allyson works hard on our yard, too.  I think if we do not win a beautification award from the city at some point, she will be quite disappointed, considering some of the awarded yards in years past.

We tilled the soil in part of this garden today, and planted young flowering bushes.  There is likely a more appropriate classification for these plants, but hey, I’m not the gardener.  Anyway, as we tilled and planted, which is not easy work, I got to thinking about the soil of our hearts.

Our hearts are appropriate as a garden metaphor, and I can see parallels between our yard with several gardens and our hearts with many corners.  Much of the time gardening involves getting rid of the things we don’t want crowding the spaces; weeds, rogue plants, rocks, stubborn roots.  These things creep in over time and slowly destroy the beauty of the garden if we are not vigilant.  Before knowing Christ, we once walked in ways that are no longer acceptable.  Paul tells us to put these things away:

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator

Like this side garden in our yard, the soil in our hearts can develop hardness and grow weeds.  Sometimes, it is one particular part of our hearts that needs tending.  Maybe we keep a secret patch for lies or vanity.  Sometimes we harbor a tough plot of bitterness or anger, or resentment toward a particular family member.  Left alone they become overgrown with weeds that can eventually grow to reach other parts of our heart, and begin to erode at the beauty they find there.

When they get like this, it may take tough love from the Maker, in the form of tilling that heart-soil to prepare it for something beautiful.  While I was tilling today, the ground was tough, dry, and needed to be broken.  After I had tilled the soil, it then needed to be raked into order, then holes were dug to make room for the plants.  I wondered to myself, “How often is my heart just like this?  How many times have I neglected things in my own heart to the point where God needs to take drastic action to break me, soften me, get me in order, and pour His growing water into my life?”

The good news about gardening is that when all of the hard work is done, you are left with a thing of beauty, or at least something that is on the way to becoming beautiful.  It isn’t that the plants or flowers are instantly marvelous.  Rather, it takes even more time and attention to ensure they come to life and are as beautiful as possible.  Eventually, though, with tender care, repeated watering, and removing the evil in the soil around, they produce amazing results.

There may be chastening along the way, heartache and sorrow, pain and discipline.  At long last, though, the Savior makes way in our hearts to plant the fruit of the Spirit, and He cultivates those things in us that please Him most, reflect Him most, and so are most beautiful and pleasing to him.  But oh, it hurts along the way.

2nd Cor. 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.