The cycle begins with strategic planning.

As you determine what crop to grow, one might consider many factors: climate, cost, appetite or even sale potential.

The agricultural cycle moves forward with soil preparation, followed by planting.  Planting is followed by consistent attention and care during the growth season.

Finally, growth is followed by harvesting.

Prepare, Plant, Protect, and Harvest.   So goes the cycle of agriculture; so goes the cycle of life.

I think it is interesting, though, how we readily accept this process as a circle when we apply it to our gardens but so often perceive it as a line when we apply it to our lives.

We know that we need to plant the seeds of this season’s harvest for the soil to bear fruit again.  We know that the harvest is not the end of the story when it comes to flowers, or vegetables.

But in our lives the process can feel more terminal.  After we have carefully chosen to plant what we would desire to reap – after we have so tenderly protected our investments as they’ve grown – isn’t it so tempting to harvest our reward and be done with it?

The concept of harvest is all over the Bible; from literal talk of the riches of the earth to metaphors meant to explain the labor and rewards of our faith.  But I wonder if the most significant message of harvest might be as simple as, “keep going”.

We are not created to live in perpetual harvest.  Harvest is an action, not a destination. It is essential to the fruit you will go on to bear in another season, even if along the way you determine that you need to change the crop.

What are we called to do with what we have sown?   I think that is a question we are called to ask many times in our lives.  The good news is that our God is ready with the answer:

Plant new flowers.

Don’t just grow; grow forward.

This post was originally published as a part of a lent devotional my church, Sterling United Methodist, is writing. Check out this and other posts on the church blog!

“He got this very serious look on his face after I told him, and he said something to me I don’t think I will forget this semester or ever. ‘Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.” 

― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

What is it that you deserve?

If the adds on my Facebook newsfeed are to be believed, I deserve plenty!  A vacation, a new car, and any number of charming little items from the online window shopping I enjoy indulging in…it’s all on sale!  The algorithm knows what its doing; these adds are trying to get into my head and override rational thought with “oh yeah….I want that…I work hard…I shouldn’t worry about spending extra money because I deserve it!”  

But what about love?  The world isn’t so sure that I deserve that (and would probably like to sell me something that promises to fix that).  

We all long for acceptance and love.  These things may not literally keep us breathing but they are essential to feeling alive.  We are so desperate without love that we try to use the same rules that apply to material things to get it and don’t understand when we fall short.  We get frustrated after working so hard to achieve, we often settle for second best or good enough because we are tired of trying.  We may end up settling for what is easy, but we deserve so much more. 

In our time on Earth we are many things:  parents, leaders, lovers, entrepreneurs.  Sinners and saints.  But God sees us as only one thing:  His beloved child.  (1 John 3:1) We might believe that consciously if we hear it often enough but, even so, many of us struggle to really know it.  Deep down we believe the voices telling us that we’re not enough, that we need to do more and be more to be worthy.

On the surface it feels pretty logical and fair, doesn’t it?  Do the work, reap the reward.  We understand that transaction pretty well; it’s the rhythm of the human world that we live in.  And that line of thinking isn’t entirely wrong;  there are certainly many wonderful milestones that we can reach by doing.   But don’t be fooled:  there is nothing that you can achieve that makes you more or less worthy of the love and grace of God.  

When you feel tempted to settle for less than you deserve – for less than you have already been given – instead of praying for some kind of transformation that you think will make you compatible with something or someone, pray for the ability to see yourself the way that God already does:  a beloved, perfectly imperfect masterpiece; a living miracle of love.

God made you on purpose.  

You do enough,  You are enough. 

Allow yourself to love.  Allow yourself to be loved.

This post was originally published as a part of a lent devotional my church, Sterling United Methodist, is writing. Check out this and other posts on the church blog!

Other than maybe January 1st of a new year, I am not sure that we ever think as much about what we consume as we do at the beginning of Lent. We start to examine our habits and narrow in on something that we believe that we can abstain from for 40 days and end up a better person for it.

It is a challenge we take on with the best of intentions:  walking with the Savior through the wilderness.  A resolution, but with Jesus as an accountability partner.

A quick audit of my life reveals many things I could stand to get a better handle on. I definitely consume more coffee than I should on any given day, I never drink enough water, and this time of year right after Valentine’s Day when the stores are full of those amazing marshmallow eggs and hollow bunnies the struggle is REAL…

Its a long list, to be honest!  But is my low-key caffeine addiction truly the biggest obstacle to my best life? What about chocolate? Is dairy keeping me from a closer walk with God?

Or is it just a lot easier to face what it is that we consume than what it is that consumes us.

It is surely difficult to change what we eat and drink; harder still to address why we do the things that deplete us – the habits and behaviors that use us up and wipe us out.

But what about those things that exhaust our soul that are impossible to change? Most of us can’t make a 40-day change to our job, our children or our relationships without life altering consequences.  What about the relentless emotional expense of simply being human in a world that seems to expect so much more?

Maybe you haven’t even figured out what to give up and you already feel like you are in the wilderness. And even though today is only the beginning of Lent,  you may feel like you have been here for ages.

In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 Paul says this: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

It may feel like the world is trying to break us but take heart: It tried to break Jesus, too.

The world tempts you to believe that there is an easier way to do all of this, and that everyone else has it all figured out. To be so consumed with jealousy and shame that you will consume anything to help you hold it together on the surface.

Maybe this year, that is something we could consider giving up. Instead of being consumed by the cost of constant perfection, let the cracks show for a season; let the light of God shine through what you were certain was a great flaw in your life.  Refill what the world has consumed with confident hope in Christ Jesus.

You were molded by the hands of the potter into the exact jar of clay that you are for that very purpose.

In these numbered days you are meant to be the vessel, not the ashes.  Choose to consume, and to be consumed by, Love.