To the untrained eye, a newly-tilled garden is just a patch of ground, but the gardener sees soil replete with moisture, nutrients, air, and living organisms. To the gardener the soil is a living thing. A gardener touches, smells, and remembers the soil’s past history to capitalize on the wealth stored there. To the gardener, an ordinary patch of ground can be rich soil.

Jesus spoke of rich soil as a metaphor of our lives of faith. Even in rich soil the yield may be only thirty- or sixty-fold. Apparently Jesus was quite satisfied with the thirty-fold, for he understands that the soil may be rich, but other factors can prevent the yield.  This is true of our spiritual lives, too. God has given each of us the gift of faith, requiring response. Just as gardens vary from year to year in their yield, our response to God varies, too. We pray with fruitfulness one year, with dryness the next. Our deeds of charity may tower like sunflowers this year, but creep like ground-cover next year. Our involvement may be as inconspicuous as a lily of the valley now, but change the circumstances and our ministry may reach heavenward like hollyhock. God understands our efforts and our yield. Even faith’s tiniest yield is stormed in the Kingdom, where all is becoming the hundredfold in God’s design.

Divine Gardener, sow your message deep within me that I may yield a hundredfold harvest of love.