Farming God’s Way (Part 2)

FARMING GOD’S WAY (PART 2)

I love to read the stuff people put on the back of their cars, don’t you?   Without any formal introductions, you can learn a lot about the people behind the wheel… their personality traits, what they do for a living, what their hobbies are, what their political views are, their family make-up and even about their faith or lack thereof. The other day I pulled up behind a car that had a John Deere sticker on the top of the back window and at the bottom of the window, in smaller print, were these words… “I make dirt beautiful”. OMG! It took my breath away! Almost immediately a silly thought flashed across my mind… God would put that sticker on the back of His car, if He drove one! His business card would probably read something like this: “Garden of Eden Farms, International … Agricultural Expert and Consultant…. In the business of making Dirt Beautiful… Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you, 24/7”.   And there it was, an opening for my next ferret “farming” trip! Woop, woop!!! J

Where to begin? Hum! Let’s dive back into Genesis chapters 1 and 2, familiar trails where we found that God was actually the first farmer and that He planned for farming to be a family business.   We found that every living thing is made of dirt and science confirms that, because all life has the same chemical composition as dirt. God prepared the soil with life-infusing power, and from it, sprang all of His feed crops, grasses and herbs with life perpetuating seed in them and trees that bear fruit that contain life perpetuating seeds in them. Then He populated Eden with animals which included cows, sheep, horses and every exotic creature He imagined to live in the air, on land and in the sea. Then, He molded Adam, (designed to carry on the family Agri-business) out of the moist clay of the garden.   God was very specific in his job description: one who would guard the garden, subdue it, have dominion over it and he was to till the ground. The word, till, in Hebrew is aw bad’ which literally means, husbandman, or a farmer and everything a farmer does. So Adam was meant to carry on the business of “making dirt beautiful”, just like his own beautiful, perfect dirt that God had created and beautified with His divine essence!

Of course, we know that Adam corrupted his dirt when he fell. Sadly, because all dirt is connected, when Adam fell, the ground, itself, and everything made of that dirt fell as well. (Romans 8:18-23) Look at Genesis 3:17-19…”…because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake (because of you). In sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring fourth to you and you shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground, for out of it were you taken; for dust you are and unto dust shall you return.” Adam had just unbeautified his own dirt! How sad! Even more pitiful, he tried to make his corrupted body presentable by covering it in fig leaves, which was impossible. LOL! I can sort of identify. I have a calendar titled “If You Can’t Lose It, Decorate it” and I love that calendar because it gets real about our “dirt” and how to make it presentable regardless of how it has turned out. The thing I have learned is that an unattractive body is still unattractive even in a designer dress! UGH! Oh my! Sorry, I got us off on a funky little ferret trail! Back to the main tunnel…. So, Adam had ruined his own dirt and had no power to make it beautiful again…

But God…..!!!   I still love that phrase….(Eph. 1:4-7) God, who had an alternate plan from before the foundations of the earth, made a way to come to the earth in the form of a man (made of dirt). By his death and resurrection, He reversed the curse on all dirt! (Gal. 3:13, I Cor. 15:45-49) And we, who receive this gift, have a new seed in us, the reproducing seed of God! Check out I John 3:9 and I Peter 1:23 “…being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God.” So, now, God is the husbandman, farming in us (from the inside – out).   He planted His good seed in us and He expects to bring in a harvest of good fruit from us, so that we, by our fruit, can resume farming in the world, solely by the power of God. It’s a little confusing but hang in there! Little chair boogie here!!!! Woohoo!

Okay!   We have gone from being farmers to being “farmed” by the ultimate farmer, God, with the aid and power of His Holy Spirit! The Word tells us that God is a “fruit” farmer! (Somehow that fits! LOLOL!) He chose to be our husbandman in grape vineyards and fruit orchards. (Fruit bearing trees are a type of humanity in scripture.  So we are trees!) In both, the vineyard and the fruit trees,  first, the seedlings are expected to be beautiful and eventually bear fruit. Second, the worth of the trees is judged by the quality of their fruit. If the fruit isn’t good, pity the tree! (Think of it… the fig tree full of leaves, but with no fruit, was cursed and didn’t get another chance,  unfruitful or poorly fruited branches are lopped off and thrown in the fire…. YUCK!) Third, the quality of the fruit is determined by where, and in what medium, the roots are planted. And, finally, in God’s vineyards and orchards, the plants are subject to the hand of the husbandman, God, Himself.

Ferret question… Why did God choose to refer to our beautiful lives as a type of trees and not as animals? I have a theory… in Genesis: 1:19-24, God described all animal life as having movement. Animal life is independent in that God’s creatures can move about, make decisions about where to go, what to eat and how to defend or protect themselves on a very basic level. Hebrew scholars say that animal life with “NePhesh” (a soul) have the freedom of independent movement. Trees, on the other hand depend totally on a husbandman (God or God’s environment) for their well-being, not being able to move or make determinations for themselves. I think of all those times I “planted” my kids, firmly, on a stool to clip hair, or brush hair, to clean teeth and even bandage a booboo, they couldn’t be still for even a minute! How many times has God said to us “Be still and know I am God”, and we couldn’t do it? God speaks of it in Matt. 6:28-29 “…Consider the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they spin…if God, who clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?…” So plants/trees, who can do nothing for themselves, and must rely, totally, on the creator to make them beautiful and to produce fruit in them! And He is faithful….

I don’t know about you, but I have heard innumerable sermons on our responsibility to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be kind and thoughtful, and  faithful, to ask for patience, and on and on. To tell you the truth, for many years I would listen with good intentions and actually believed that I could be that perfect person if I tried hard enough, only to fail miserably by Monday. It is sort of like trying to pin fig leaves on a muddy lump. Bottom line, I can’t make my soil beautiful by trying in my flesh to be like Jesus! The good news is that we don’t have to try to BE like Jesus… God planted His Spirit seed in us so we could produce, incorruptible “Jesus Fruit”! Now, that’s worth shoutin’ about!!!   Jump over to Galatians 5:22-25 and BOOM! there it is. “But the FRUIT of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…”. Our branches can do nothing but abide in the vine or the tree, the fruit is produced by the power in the nutrients drawn up to the branches. (we do have a say in what we draw up into our branches, but that is another trip entirely!) The fruit hangs on our branches for others to harvest as a blessing. (trees don’t eat their own fruit)  When others are drawn to our fruit and feed on the fruit of God’s grace, produced in us by the husbandry of God, they ingest the seeds of that fruit and the dirt beautifying process begins in them. And suddenly, we are farming, God’s way! It’s the love of God, not man’s love, that leads men to repentance and a beautifying of their dirt. Amen!

God knows what we need to flourish, so we are planted deep in the Love of God (Eph. 3: 16-21), rooted and grounded. That means we are anchored in that love and that we draw up His love into our branches and the power of the Holy Spirit produces the fruit! How easy is that?   Jesus gives us an extraordinary picture of God, farming in our soil, making it beautiful. Go to John 15:1-12… If a branch isn’t bearing fruit, he lifts it up out of the dirt, cleans it off (by His Word) and puts it back on the trellis. (in verse 2-3 the phrase “takes away”   is the Greek word Airo which means lifts up) . Then, He prunes the useless foliage out of our lives. And He nourishes us by causing us to Abide in Him. In verse 4 Jesus says “Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you except you abide in me.” As we abide, God does everything and the fruit we produce is a response to His Love, not a responsibility demanded of us. In verse 8 we see that God gets the glory when we bear much fruit, like any good farmer who is known by the abundance and quality of his harvest. So, as we continue in His love, HE MAKES our soil beautiful and, in turn, by our fruit, we bring glory to the Father as we farm in others! Now that’s worth dancin’ about!   Woop! Woop!!!