Gardening with Nathan

“Behold, the sower went out to sow…”

Matthew 13:3

A gardener must grow, even when he has no land to grow on. If that’s the case, then recycled Starbucks cups and a bag of soil from Walmart will do the trick. This particular episode of Gardening with Nathan is brought to you by a lemon. A fresh, home-grown California lemon, picked from the tree of new friends we visited when we first arrived here in Los Angeles. 

Nathan was so thrilled to have a freshly picked lemon. It was a precious gift. For the entire 25 minute drive home he imagined how delicious it would be and described in detail how he would make ‘Dad’s Lemonade’. There was a lot of smelling, sighing and singing… yes, even singing. One of the many reasons I love him, is because he finds so much joy in simple things. It was a very entertaining drive home. 

As I am sure you may have guessed, Nathan went immediately to the kitchen, eager to prepare ‘Dad’s Lemonade’. Slicing the precious citrus in half, Nathan gasped – a seed. “I could grow my own lemon tree!” He exclaimed. Carefully he wrapped the seed in a piece of paper towel so it would not get lost and the very next day he went on a mission to find soil. But unlike BC where you can pull over to the side of any rural road and find some dirt, the ground here is just too hot, dry, and concrete-like. After a trip to Walmart a few days later, Nathan triumphantly returned home with a bag of soil and planted his precious lemon seed. 

I admit I was skeptical about this gardening endeavour, but I made room on the shelf near the window for the lemon seed. As you can imagine, he carefully tended to the little seed day after day… and day after day he slowly began to take over more shelf space with random recyclable containers. Seeds collected from our neighbourhood walks or from produce in our refrigerator were deposited into these containers filled with soil. 

This afternoon, as I was tidying up our apartment, I noticed the little lemon plant, now perched on Nathan’s desk, just a wee bit taller and with a couple more leaves. This tiny lemon seed is growing steadily under the thoughtful and loving care of my precious husband. Not far away the shelf is full of seeds sown with a hopeful heart. He knows the gift within each seed, and that when sown in fertile soil, they will yield new life, abundant fruit and more seeds to scatter.

My husband is a faithful sower. And just like he faithfully and lovingly sows the seeds of plants, he also faithfully and lovingly sows the word of God. When he finds seeds inside a lemon, I can’t stop him from planting them in any soil he can find and the same is true with the word of the Gospel. He will sow that word on the heart of any person he meets. He knows that faith in Christ comes from the Gospel. No one can believe the gospel unless they first hear it, so he is highly motivated to proclaim God’s truth to every heart he can. He is not ashamed, and he trusts in the power of God to save sinners. I am so grateful for his passion to preach the gospel, in fact it was his faithful sowing that planted the seed of the Gospel in my heart! Nathan did not save me, only God saves. God prepares hearts and makes them fertile ground for sowing. God uses the saints to do the sowing to spread the word of the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. 

My husband is a faithful sower. Even where there is hardly a speck of soil to scatter his seeds he proclaims the wonderful message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He obediently and lovingly tends to his crops and joyfully watches God’s word do the work of producing softened hearts and lovers of Christ. 

My friends, we are all sinners, we all sin, every day all the time. Big sins, small sins. Lying, cheating, stealing, pridefulness, self-importance, greed, gossip, envy, idolatry… I could go on. People don’t like to talk about their sin, because no one wants to feel badly, no one wants to be told how to behave or what’s right or wrong. Our hearts are deceived, we want what we want, we want our own truth – you do your thing, and I’ll do mine. But the reality is we are all guilty. God is the creator and sustainer of the entire universe, including you and me. He is holy and perfect and He hates sin. We have all broken God’s law, so we are all condemned to an eternity in Hell. But God is also a compassionate and loving father, so He has made a way for people to avoid this judgement. He sent His son, Jesus Christ, born by the virgin Mary, to live the perfect sinless life that we could never live. Jesus was crucified on the cross, bearing the punishment for sins as a substitute for those who would place their faith in Him. He then rose to life on the third day, defeating death and He now sits at the right hand of God in heaven. If you acknowledge your sins against God, turn away from them and ask God to forgive you, He is faithful to do so.  If you place your faith in Christ you will have the promise of eternal life with Christ in Heaven. It is an incredible mercy, that, while we were yet sinners, hostile to God, He still loved us. He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him, giving us incredible hope and peace as we trust in Him. 

The gospel is an incredible seed. And oh the joy in seeing God germinate that seed, and bring new life to the heart of a believer. No wonder Nathan gets so excited seeing the seeds sprout… it is a picture of the work of the wonderful Gospel. 

“…And [other seeds] fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.He who has ears, let him hear”

Matthew 13:8-9