A few weeks ago a friend asked if she could call me her farmer friend. “If someone asks, ‘Where’d you learn that?’ I can say, ‘my Farmer Friend Kayla told me!'” To which I said, “Absolutely. I am your farmer friend.”
My parents may get a kick out of that one because the 14 year old that complained every time she was told to weed the garden did not expect to ever lay claim to the title of ‘farmer friend’ in adulthood. She wanted to flee the 90+ acre plot of land and make sure she always brought her nice jeans back with her whenever she visited so she wouldn’t have to do ‘farmer friend’ type of work.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to farming and planting and growing and all the outside things that I grew up around. There is definitely something spiritual about getting your body outside and your hands in the dirt.
Scripture has a lot to say about the agricultural process. Historically, it makes sense, because the people the words of the Bible were written to were agricultural people. They didn’t have Twitter or blogs or digital billboards. So, good on you God for meeting Your people where they were at!
Books can be (and have been) filled with the connection between the land and our spiritual lives. It is good – as a farmer – to let your land rest so that it can replenish and continue to produce. It is good – as a human – to let your body rest so that it can replenish and continue to produce. See where I’m going?
But the earth-to-spirit line that God keeps bringing into my mind is that there is a time to sow and a time to reap. A time to plant and a time to uproot.
Right now, seeds and plants are in the ground. A few weeks ago, all you could see was the dirt that covered them. As days progress and the seed dies in order to reproduce, tiny sprouts begin to emerge. It will be quite a while before any of the things that went into the ground give us something that we can pick, wash, and eat/enjoy.
In many ways, this is exactly what is happening in our lives. Right now is a time to sow into our hearts/bodies/minds/spirits/homes/etc. I feel so deeply that Jesus is inviting us to plant Him into the soil of our lives, cover Him up with dirt, and let Him do a work. What better time than now – the season of spring, where new life is budding up all around us – to let our Redeemer bury Himself into us and see what happens. As we will do with our plants, we check in every day: How’s the soil? Does it need water? How are the plants? Do they need pruned? What do the leaves look like? Are there bugs? Disease? Things that need to be guarded against?
And as we put in the time to tend the earth around us, as well as tend to our own lives, we will see a harvest. It won’t be tomorrow. I can promise that. Nothing real and valuable grows that fast. But we will see a harvest.
So, sow. Press in. Let Jesus take root in your life and see what kind of fruit comes to the surface.
Kayla Smith 