Lessons on Zealous Living Learned in the Garden! Part 4

Are you ready for more lessons learned in the garden? Is your garden starting to take shape? Has the weather been favorable? So far, we’ve learned lessons about cultivating the soil, sowing your seeds, and dealing with weeds. I hope everything is going great as you trust God to help your garden prosper. But there is another important lesson that we need to discuss. It is a lesson that all gardeners have to deal with at some point. Let’s hope your garden stays on the good side of this one.

‌One truth gardeners and farmers know with great certainty is weather matters. One great lesson of gardening is learning to trust God through the sun, wind, rain, storms, and so much more. Gardening or farming exercises our faith.

In case you missed it, in our last article we discussed Lessons from Weeds. The first article in our series dealt with lessons learned from cultivating our soil. The second lesson was all about understanding the sowing of seeds. Today, we are looking at the role weather plays in our garden. 

Are you ready? 

Let’s get our ZEALOUS on!

‌In our modern world, with greenhouses and water bills, it has become easier for us to neglect the trust factor involved when we set out to grow a crop. These conveniences minimize realities of the struggle. Yet the weather is still a determining factor, even considering these conveniences.

Farmers can drive the nicest tractors with all kinds of computer technology to prepare the soil, sow the seed, manage the field, and harvest when the time comes. Despite robust equipment and technology, the name of the game is faith and trust. Farmers know first-hand how important it is to trust God. They have faith that God will help them have a successful harvest.

‌All of our fancy tools and technology can not prevent a drought. Any prolonged drought has the potential to render our watering technology useless. We have no way to stop a torrential rainfall from flooding an area and destroying our crops. Not one farmer has ever saved their crop from the destructive effects of a hailstorm. No one has prevented a tornado or hurricane from damaging entire fields of produce. No one has ever calmed a storm apart from Jesus Christ.

There is a powerful lesson laid at our feet in the garden. There we remind ourselves and teach our children an important lesson every time we plant a garden, watch farmers sow a field, or visit a farmer’s market. Gardening, like life itself, is a yearly reminder that we are not in control. We are not sovereign over our lives as we often like to think.

Greater forces are at work among us. One year we can have the most beautiful harvest from our gardens, but the very next year a storm could destroy everything. God sends weather to us all in differing ways at differing times. There is no prejudice in how weather affects us. Jesus was very clear when He said,

Perhaps we need to be reminded of our responsibility to trust God and praise Him amid storms and in times of plenty. Before science explained rain and storms, our Creator informed us of how they occur.

²⁷ “For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, ²⁸ which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly.” Job 36:27-28 (ESV)

God created a system upon the earth that has been with us since the Flood of Noah. The water cycle creates a way to bring rain upon the earth. It is a system that God is in complete control of.

⁷ “Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, ⁸ fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!” Psalm 148:7-8 (ESV) 

¹² “It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. ¹³ When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.” Jeremiah 10:12-13 (ESV) (ESV)

By God’s command, the reality of even fire and hail, snow and mist, storms and their winds all remind us He is their Creator and commander. They are all in place to do one thing: obey and fulfill His Word. He has a reason for everything that happens in our lives. The garden is an incredible reminder and instructor of these truths.