The Holy Spirit's Garden

Hey, we’re working on our bean harvest. Pretty, aren’t they? They’re all twirly. It’s satisfying to get to the year’s end and just be able to pick fruit straight out of the ground.

It gets me thinking, though, on long, tedious jobs like this. What if work in the gospel were this easy? A harvest of souls for the kingdom. Just come out and harvest.

But the more I think about it, I realize there isn’t all that much difference.

I didn’t make these bean plants grow. I certainly didn’t make beans pop out of them. I just put the seed in the ground and weeded them. I took care of them. I was as faithful as I knew how. That’s probably not entirely true. I could have done a lot more to help these bean plants grow.

But the fact is, I put the seed in the ground, and so many things come together to make a plant grow. There’s the sunshine. I didn’t make sure the rain fell at the right time. That was outside my control. Then there’s all the biology in the soil that feeds the roots and makes it grow. Billions, literally billions, of microorganisms that feed a plant and bring production and fertility.

Really, all that I’m asked to do is be faithful in the gospel. To plant the seed. To care for it where I can, as best as I can.

This farm here, I do my best to manage it, but we don’t manage the kingdom, do we? The Holy Spirit manages the kingdom.

I planted another plot of beans over that way, and they seemed to be growing really well. When I went to harvest, the squirrels had eaten it all. I didn’t get any beans out of there. But maybe next year.

We don’t know. We just keep gardening, and there will be a harvest, because the garden manager has promised there will be. We can trust him. He’s really good at what he does.

Thank you for partnering in this work among the Bagirmi people. Continue to pray for them. The Spirit will be faithful.

- Nathanael Szobody

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