No Zucchini

We are thinking about planting a garden in our backyard. Gardening has never been my strong suit, but we might give it a try. We have talked about what to plant.

While we have not decided what all we will plant, I know we will not plant any zucchini. Here is the problem with planting zucchini: if you plant zucchini, you will end up with zucchinis—a lot of them. I don’t want a lot of zucchinis.*

The Apostle Paul said it, but he didn’t need to because it is a fact of life, nature and reality. “You reap what you sow.” You sow zucchini; you reap zucchinis.

You can’t get around this. You sow corn; you reap corn. (We will probably try that.) You “sow” tomatoes; you reap tomatoes. (We will definitely plant those.) You sow peas; you reap peas. (Nothing like fresh peas.) But since we don’t want or need a bunch of zucchinis, we won’t be putting any in.

What do you want in life? Kindness? Generosity? Truth? Industriousness? Fairness? Forgiveness? People giving you a break on your faults? People helping you when you need a hand?

You reap what you sow. By sowing and planting and living out such things, you will reap them

What don’t you want in life? Gossip? Backbiting? Falsehoods? Stinginess? Meanness? Grudges held against you? Worst construction on your actions?

Then don’t sow, plant or live like that. You reap what you sow.

Consider these three points.

First, even as they say all politics is local, so is all such gardening. If you are concerned about “how things are going” in a brutish, cynical, untrustworthy nation, start sowing differently in your own back yard. That’s where it starts. Don’t think there is nothing you can do, and don’t think that you have to do something big and splashy to make a difference. Start sowing the things in your own life that you’d like to see happening beyond it.

Second, the more planning you do the better. While I am not one of them, I know that the best gardeners are the ones who have a plan. They are careful about what they plant and what they don’t plant. They think about it. They study up on it. They map the garden. The choose the best seeds. They arrange the different plants in a way that they do not work against one another. They don’t let “gardening just happen.” They work now on what they want to enjoy later. What plan do you have about your life? Have you mapped out what you would like to see develop in your life and what you don’t want to see develop? What can you do now so that life doesn’t “just happen?” What can you be doing with your life now so that later the produce in your bushel basket is healthy and satisfying?

Third, gardening takes time. There is a long time between spring and the fall harvest. Be patient. Don’t give up. Weed. Feed. Water. Tend. As you start sowing the things you’d like to reap, be patient. Weed out things that try to intrude. Feed on the word of God. Let Jesus, the Living Water, keep you refreshed. Tend your life prayerfully.

There is one more thing to consider. To sow requires putting the seed in the dirt, covering it up, almost putting it to death, before it can grow into a fruitful plant. The sowing to righteouessness that is the topic of this post likewise involves death, a dying to self.

While we are not positive yet on what all we will do with a garden, zucchini is out. I don’t want a bunch of zucchinis so we won’t plant any. In fact, we better make a list of what we really want out of the garden, since you reap what you sow.

That’s a truism that is more than obvious; it is significant. How would your life’s garden grow if you applied it to more than your backyard?

*Zucchini lovers, please don’t take offense. It’s not that I dislike zucchini; it’s just that I don’t need that much of it.