My dad loves gardening. Over the years he has spent time sowing, growing and harvesting. I have enjoyed the fruit of his labours. Sometimes I have been at a garden centre and seen plants that are wilting or past their best reduced for quick sale. I have never had the confidence to take them home but maybe I should? Sometimes you wonder whether it is possible for them to recover. And yet there are people who are “green fingered”. They just care for these plants and they are able to survive and thrive. In my house the only plants that seem to flourish are cactus! And yet I dream that one day I will be “green fingered”.

In the bible it says sow the word in your heart so you will not sin. Store up while you can. When you sow something it is hidden. It takes time for germination and for growth before a harvest. Many times the counsel of the bible has helped me through difficult seasons. Yesterday I was praying and it struck me that it is important not to delight in evil but to delight in the Lord. It is easy to get fascinated with and drawn into stuff that causes harm rather than good. To have a fascination with darkness not light. To germinate a seed you need the right atmosphere. A few years ago I was thinking on this and I just had this understanding that prayer changes the atmosphere that brings the growth. As we pray our hearts change and so do our responses. As we grow in understanding about the love of God and how he forgives us we are able to forgive others. As we grow in understanding how God values us our confidence and assurance in who we are in Him grows and this helps us in our daily lives. And then comes the harvest. The fruit of care of others. Of sacrificial love. Of wisdom in the face of difficulty. Of good and right relationships. Of people being cared for and for them to be able to have dignity and opportunity to give too in spite of their challenges touching in turn other people’s lives. Of unity not uniformity. Of creativity and energy. Of loving our enemy. Of going through persecution in whatever form it may come. Of peace in frailty. Of challenging injustice. Of lives encountering the love of Jesus.

I was never good at sewing at school. I was the one who never every made an item of clothing and always struggled to thread the sewing machine. And yet years later I found myself doing a textile art foundation. I smile to think on this. And in my house is a wall hanging I made using a variety of techniques both by hand and by machine! God did more than I could have ever asked or imagined and in the place of failure he worked his resurrection life.

We may not all have green fingers or even a garden to grow things but Jesus takes the areas of our lives that have died or withered as well as the bits that thrive to make something beautiful. The question is will we not only give him the things we are good at but also the things that are not our best or for which we are ashamed of so that we may encounter his grace, life and forgiveness growing in the knowledge of his love?