Showing posts with label believe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label believe. Show all posts

Thursday, August 4, 2016

God Hasn’t Forgotten About Blessing You




Our vegetable garden is producing baskets full of blessings daily! My husband and I got a late start in planting, but we’re both amazed at how well it’s doing.
He worked for several days transforming my neglected, weed-filled flower garden into a sun-loving, vegetable-producing haven. He tilled and tilled and tilled once more adding several wheel barrows full of composted chicken manure from the coop until finally…he was satisfied that the soil was ready to go.



We planted zucchini, crook-neck squash, watermelon, green onions, English cucumbers, several rows of various peppers and chilies, sweet corn now 10-feet tall and a pot full of culinary herbs. It’s amazing and a lot of fun.

One of the things I’ve learned over many years of gardening is, whether growing a space overflowing with vegetables or a flower-filled paradise for butterflies and hummingbirds, the garden forces us to be patient. It forces us to watch and wait and during all that watching and waiting, the garden doesn’t forget to grow. It doesn’t forget to produce or bloom. It just takes time…precious, necessary time.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time 
we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

When we’re waiting for the blessings to emerge, it’s easy to believe that nothing is happening, when in fact there’s so much happening beneath the soil that we never see. The root structure forms gaining in size and strength to support the weight of the blessing; each little component reaching, searching through the soil undeterred by every obstacle because that which is planted in fertile soil will, in fact, produce and bless.

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, 
we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:25)

The enemy wants you to believe that your prayers, your hopes and dreams have gone stagnant and now lie on deaf ears, but God hasn’t forgotten to bless youHe IS blessing you. Sometimes, the blessings aren’t out in the open…yet. Maybe they’re a little hidden, growing the necessary root structure and waiting to be revealed at just the right time. And when God sheds His perfect, beautiful light on your blessings, you’ll see that they are bigger and more amazing than your dreams allowed you to imagine.

Blessings come in all shapes and sizes, my friend. But all require time spent in fertile soil and, of course…a bit of SONshine.

Don’t. Give. Up.


Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop,
 some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times." (Mark 4:8)




Sunday, September 27, 2015

Called to be Strong



All too often, it’s the thin and narrow ledge we’re forced to walk that grows us the most. Sometimes navigating the tight rope stretched out long before us is our only option…and we’re called to be strong. It’s when putting one foot in front of the other with no hand rails, no support system, no one to keep us steady that we draw on our own knowledge of what inner strength really is.

So many times I’ve found myself perched up there on that highest peak alone and unsure. It’s a scary, unsteady place to be, yet it almost seems as if each scenario is perfectly orchestrated, perfectly timed with situations I certainly wouldn’t choose on my own. Most of which seem to take place each time my husband is out of town and unavailable to encourage or support me. When moving forward alone is my only option and I do so with trepidation, it’s sort of like jumping into the deep end of a pool for the first time. How deep is it really? Will I sink to the bottom or will I be able to grab the side of the pool if I need to?

It’s only after I emerge from the situation, however shaken, that I clearly see once again. Since I can do nothing apart from Him (John 15:5) I couldn't have possibly acted in my own strength, but in God’s.  

“In the day when I cried out, You answered me,
and made me bold with strength in my soul.” (Psalm 138:3)

It’s God’s strength that keeps us from sinking to the bottom. It’s His love for us that brings us safely through the dark unknown to the light on the other side. And I’ve learned that it’s not a challenge or even a test but a command to go boldly forward in the Lord. To put action to His words in every situation, our faith before our fear…each and every time we’re called to be strong.

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,” (Acts 4:29)



LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails