Often, when I’m working in my garden, a spiritual tie-in will occur to me. Such was the case last week.

The perennials are winding down for this year, looking rather bedraggled after enduring weeks of hot, dry weather. Soon, many of them will drop their leaves or die back completely to the ground. I’ll help others by removing this year’s growth so they can rest over the winter. But even as the plants are completing another cycle of flourishing, they’re preparing for the next.

Seeds

Seed heads have formed on numerous plants, including ornamental grasses, butterfly weed, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans. Some of the seeds will land in a favorable place, germinate, and produce new plants, while others provide food for hungry birds. Still others can be shared with fellow gardeners.  

As I survey the variety of seeds adorning the plants, harvest some to share and leave the rest to reproduce or feed the birds, I’m reminded of God’s promise after the flood, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22)

I’m also challenged. How am I sharing the bounty of spiritual blessings and wisdom God has imparted to me? Am I planting seeds that will bear spiritual fruit even after I’m gone? Am I sharing bits of Biblical wisdom to nourish fellow believers?

Buds

And then there are buds that have already formed on spring-blooming plants, the promise of future flowers when the conditions are right. The buds remind me that we’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14). Just as the buds are waiting to blossom, we too are awaiting our glorification, knowing that when Jesus appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).

Bulbs

Bulbs are mysterious. It takes faith to believe the homely yet intriguing packages will one day produce something beautiful. Inspecting the daffodil bulbs I purchased a few days ago, I was reminded of the assurance that one day, most likely after a period of resting in the ground unless Jesus returns first (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), my perishable body will be raised to glory, imperishable:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:51-55

Hope in Him!

In a few months, springtime will return to the little plot of ground God has entrusted to me, exuberantly pointing us toward Jesus’ return when all things will be made new and all of creation will praise Him. Until then, I will make note of the evidence of things to come, resting in the assurance that God will fulfill all His promises.

Dear Lord, thank You that Your invisible attributes, namely, Your eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20).