Daily Devotion

In Prepared Soil

"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit."  Leviticus 26:3,4

When I was a little girl--and my momma can attest to this--I loved to grow things.  One of my teachers gave me a Chia bunny because she was my secret Santa in middle school.  We had a flower bed in our front yard with some flowers in it.  I would help my daddy pull up the weeds and prepare the ground.  I would take the flowers out of their temporary pots and plant the flowers, six inches apart like the directions said.  I watered them, and pruned the weeds with my daddy.  One time, I bought a pack of cucumber seeds and planted those.  I watched over those things like a mother hawk I tell you.  Sure enough, they started growing and growing until one day when I came home, the birds had been eating them!  and of course, I was devastated...but that's another story.

The purpose of this devotion is to focus on the preparation of the soil. There are several key players involved in growing crops.  First there is the soil--your heart and soul!  You need a good plot of soil (a willing heart) with direct exposure to the sun (Son ah ha!!).  Next it says to mix in "soil amendments and fertilizer"--I take this to mean the words of wisdom from other mature Christians, wisdom that God has given you, and wisdom that He has imparted to you through the Word--spoken, written and preached.  It says to always maintain no more than half amendments and half native soil--I venture forth to say that this means that God never wants us to lose sight of who He created us to be in the words of others.  Many people nowadays base their faith and their relationship with Him on the words of others.  Cultivate that relationship so that you can rightfully discern the truth for yourself.  This part is very important: till the soil with the amendments.  Mix it up!  Break up those dirt clods and remove the rocks out of the soil.  Remove any unnatural thing--branches, weeds, stones, brambles, anything that can choke your faith and stunt your growth.  I'll stop here because now you have been prepared.  The only thing that is left is to plant that Word, that vision, that dream, whatever it is that God has given you and let it grow.

In prepared soil you can do so much.  You can plant flowers that bring beauty, you can plant vegetables that sustain life, you can plant wheat and oats and barley that are used to make bread, you can plant vines, bushes, and trees that produce such good fruit!  I'm going to share my journal entry for this evening here.  I realized that I have been in a planting season.  For the last few years, my life has been in seeming to me constant turmoil and dishevelment at all of the upsets I have experienced.  Kidney failure and transplant, other illnesses, losses and deaths--all have served to till my soil.  I needed these things to break up all the hurt, pain, and suffering that I have experienced, to uproot all the negativity and things that were stealing the life out of me.  But God I have been sowing the Word in my heart.  I have had good, sound Christian counsel to water and fertilize my ground.  I have rejected all negative thoughts, words, and people from my life.  I have been guarding my heart.  I am ready to grow.  I am ready for all the seeds God has planted to grow.  I am ready to reap the bounty that awaits me.

I encourage you to stand strong in the midst of your trial because it is for God's glory.  I cannot describe the feeling of utter brokenness, but I know that I feel better now that God has pieced me together.  If God is breaking down those strongholds--those rocks--if He is uprooting those people, ideals, and past bitterness and negativity from you--those weeds, then embrace it and let God work.  Get some sound, mature Christians who can sow back into you and feed yourself on the Word.  Get prepared because God's word and will cannot take root unless you are willing!!!  I love you and good night!

"The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest."  Psalm 85:12