The Glory Of Dirt-Working

I planted a pumpkin patch for no particular reason. 

I have an area near my garden that I can’t till because it’s the overflow from our water lines that come out from the house, so I just poked some pumpkin seeds into the ground over there to see if they would grow. 

As I poked seeds into the ground that afternoon, I thought about the spiritual implications of what I was doing. I was sowing seed, but it was in shallow, unworked soil. The seeds might sprout and grow for a little while, but once they reach more than a couple inches in depth, their growth will be stunted once they hit the layer of clay underneath. 

The truth is, I want a fruitful garden in unworked dirt, but that’s an unrealistic expectation. I’ve experienced this same unrealistic expectation in the church. I’ve noticed that everyone seems to want fruit, but no one seems to want to work the soil. There’s no shortage of people willing to plant seeds and harvest fruit. Even watering gives some immediate gratification, because you can see the water being absorbed by the thirsty ground. But there’s no glory in dirt working. There’s no immediate, measurable results when you’re on your knees getting your hands dirty.

Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that working dirt and praying look an awful lot alike. 

(Matt 13:3-6) And He told them many things in parables, saying, “A farmer went out to sow his seed… Some fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.”

(James 4:2,3) …You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives…

(2 Cor 10:3,4) For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.