How does your garden grow?

My first memory of "work" centered on soil. Wherever we lived, Morn and Dad always planted a garden--not as a hobby or just for looks. Canning and freezing the produce provided a major impact on our family-of-six food budget.

The first delicacy to ripen was strawberries. Later, corn on the cob and tomatoes adorned our dinner table. These days you can buy flesh strawberries and eat corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes any month of the year. Few even consider them delicacies anymore.

Today, my "farm" is an eight-by eight-foot grow box in my backyard. Seems we old gardeners die hard! A garden of that size will definitely not feed a large family. Truth is, it's not even economical. I spend nearly $2 for a packet of radish seeds and can probably buy a greater harvest at my local supermarket for the same price. But at this stage of my life, sound economics isn't the motivation. I go to all the trouble and expense of maintaining a garden for old times' sake, because I like to watch things grow, and I need a better excuse for being outside than mowing the lawn and fighting cinch bugs.

There's a lot one can learn about life from planting, caring for, and reaping a crop. For instance, the first thing you do is prepare the ground and make sure it's the right time of year. That's why folks up North don't plant corn in December.

What does this say about life? That there's a right time and place for everything. You can't be what you ought to be anywhere or anytime. There are certain things to do and certain places to avoid if you expect to be healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I recently read on the packet of seeds that it takes around 7-10 days before the plants come up. This reminds me that the best things in life may take time, but they're always worth the effort. We twenty-first-century dwellers tend to want what we want right now. However, a productive garden and a life lived well take time and work. We're talking about the core attribute of patience.

So, here's me as a child, working in the garden with my mother. Seven days after planting our seeds, the beans begin to sprout. "Hey, Mom," I say, pointing at the tender leaves peeking out of the soil, "where are the beans?"

"Patience, son," she counsels. "They're not what you get first; they're what you get last. In the meantime the plants must be weeded and given the right amount of sunlight, moisture, and fertilizer."

Notice, she always said the right amount. Fertilizers can either feed or burn plants. Water can either nourish or drown a growing seedling. Sunlight either triggers photosynthesis or scorches unprotected leaves.

Are you reading between the lines? Our lives are like that, too. Remember the old adage about not getting too much of a good thing? This generation will be remembered for its extremes--even in the good things.

I believe our Great Physician--the one who made both man and plant--can also be called our Great Gardener. One day He told His listeners: "All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head" (Mark 4:28). Notice the sequence? Growth, and life, is a process. One doesn't plant snapdragons one day and expect to have a bouquet the next. One can't live contrary to sound health principles and hope to live a disease-flee life.

So, all you would-be gardeners, the next time you're working with your plants, think about the process and quietly examine your own life. Are you doing the right things at the right times in the right places and in the right ways to assure future blessings? I believe this is what our Great Physician had in mind when He instructed, "Consider the lilies how they grow" (Luke 12:27, KJV).

Of course, there are those who prefer store-bought silk plants that don't require care. But they miss so much. There's no life. It's all about looks. Have you ever stopped to smell a silk flower?

Why not pick up your hoe, stick a straw in your teeth, and head for your own little patch of earth? Perhaps God has lessons for you to learn as you wait for the harvest.

Richard O'Ffill helps his garden grow in Long-wood, Florida.