Planting a Bigger Garden

 

 

“I was a little late getting my garden in this year,” the older man told me.  “I guess I just didn’t get around to it when I intended, but I’ve got my plants in now.”

I’m not sure what people in urban areas talk about.  I’m guessing sports and the weather, but when you live in the country, you talk to people about gardening.  If things are dry (as they are right now), you complain about how we’ve had less rain than usual for the time of year.  When the Japanese Beatles show up, you complain about them and tell about how you’ve put out traps for them.

(I’m pretty sure these traps don’t work.  They do attract beetles, but I’m also sure they would work better if I put them in my neighbor’s yard.  Being the Christian man I am, I haven't done that.)

“How late did you get it out?”  I asked. 

“Just last week,” he said.  He pulled out his phone and showed me a few photos of an immaculate garden.

“It looks great,” I said.  “You sure do have a lot planted.  I plant something similar, but I’m feeding five children.”

“It’s just my wife and me,” he said.  “We end up giving a lot of it away.  But you know, as you get older, there’s less that you can give to others.  Raising a garden helps us stay useful.”

The verse comes to me from Acts 20:35, “…remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Many have not understood this fact.  Their lives are all about receiving gifts and blessings.  Even as they do this, they are missing the greater blessing.

The good feelings one gets from getting a gift are often fairly short in duration.  There is excitement when Christmas or a birthday comes, with all the gifts that show up, but then they quickly get put aside for the other needs of life.

On the other hand, when we are able to give, it says not only that we have enough, but that we have a heart that sees and desires to meet others needs.  We have realized that we have much and we simply want to pass it on.

More than that, the memory of the ways that we have blessed others will stick with us far down life’s road.

It requires planning to have the resources to give.  It takes effort to budget and prepare ways that we can bless others when we see their needs.

It might even be something as simple as planting and tending a garden that is bigger than our family needs, simply so that we can share something more than zucchini with those around us at harvest time.

Those who have prepared truly find that it is more blessed to give than to receive.