On a bright, sunny August morning, I went outside to do my usual garden tending when I found myself standing over the pot where I planted cucamelons. Cucamelons are not a crop I wanted to grow for high yields of food, but really just a fun novelty. They are tiny cucmbers no larger than a grape. Up to this point, they were a garden curiosity I had never grown before, and any gardener knows that a new plant baby is an exciting thing, no matter how insignificant the crop. The mere idea of them was wooing my heart, and up to this point, I had only picked 2 or 3 of their tiny fruits. That morning, as I searched its vines, I found one, then another, then many. Every gardener knows the success wrapped up in this moment and the joy of it brought me to laughter.

It was in that moment that God began to speak to my heart. He answered questions I had asked long ago, such as, “where is the fruit of my life, Lord” and “I wish I could bear more fruit for you, Lord, why can’t I?” In that moment, he showed me comparisons I could understand as a gardener who is passionate about her garden. Our fruit gives him great pleasure, but he decides what fruit he wants and grows it in us. It’s his job to nurture and tend the garden. He will cultivate the soil, do the work, make the decisions, fight off the pests and the weeds, and plant at the right time. He recognizes that we have to mature before we can bear fruit, and he takes that into account. As a Christian, I have often been disappointed in the lack of fruit I want to produce. But in this moment, he reminded me that he knows what fruit he wants us to bear and when we will bear it.

The voice of a gardening mentor rang in my mind, ‘seeds are programmed to grow, we have to give them the correct environment…’ showing me my own role in God’s great garden. There is so much grace in remembering that it is God who wants the fruit and everything in our life is God giving us the conditions we need to yield a crop that brings him great joy. He has made the garden plan, he has decided the yields he wants, whether they are a staple crop or a novelty that woos is heart, and he does all the work. He does all this for his own pleasure. All we have to do is want to grow.

Isaiah 58:11

John 15:1-8

Psalm 1:1-6

I’ll never not grow cucamelons after this.

Be Blessed Today.