Breaking New Ground

I’ve heard it said that nothing is certain but change.  This is a truth I come to understand with every passing day.  Yet there is another truth I believe with all my heart-God is steadfast in my life.  He is as close as a whisper. But He is not a passive God.  He calls me to be like Him, so daily He shifts things in me as a sculptor creating the vision He sees in the clay.

Seasons, brought by His hand, shape the landscape of my thinking as the water of His Spirit flows along the newly created pathways shifting my behaviors and reactions.  I am the same.  Yet I become something new.  It is much the same way when we cultivate a garden.  The soil has always been there; but we nourish it, break up the ground, plant, and water.  It is the same.  Yet it becomes something different.

A few years ago, we moved into a new home.  There was little grass in the backyard.  It was a barren sandpit!  I had a tough time seeing any hope for it and lobbied for Grady to call in a landscaper.  But my husband called upon the earth to raise its game.  He broke up the ground with his newly purchased lawn toy.  Then he added topsoil.  He tilled that into the sand.  He replenished the earth with rich nutrition, planted grass seed, watered the ground faithfully, and waited.  Over time the grass began to grow up and then out.  My husband took sprigs of grass from pieces of ground that was flourishing and planted them into places where the grass had not yet taken root.  He repeated the process of watering and waiting.  Today, we have a back yard that is full of life.  It is the same yard, yet it has become something different.

We are like that soil.  We are called upon to raise our game.  So, God breaks up some things in our lives, nurtures us, waters us, and waits.  It does not happen overnight.  It is a process of time.   Some, however, refuse to shift.  They refuse to allow the hard places of their hearts to be plowed up and lain bare.   So, the tiller comes out.  It is for our good!

Then we begin to grow up and out.  Oh, what glory!  But wait, now the gardener is taking sprigs of our growth and moving it into new ground!  What is happening?!

We are being stretched! Propagated! Raised up to reproduce in areas we have never been before.  But the Master Gardner knows what He is doing.  He never leaves us.  He waters and He hovers over us, watching and waiting.  He sees much more in us than we have ever understood.  He sees in us a lush green garden bursting with life.  He sees in us a tree of life.  Life that is healing for the nations.

I am being stretched. God has led me into new things and new places. He has called me to step out of my comfortable patch of ground and till up a bit of the soil around me. I have always been content to live in my introverts box. I have always been happy to sort my life into categorized files, labeled and stacked neatly. But God is knocking over a few of those boxes and calling me to raise my game. Writing a blog is way outside my comfort zone. It is uncomfortable. It is daunting. I am learning something new each hour. But He will never leave my side. He is closer than a whisper!

Has God called you to move out from your patch of ground? You are more than able, for He is more than able!

Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19 Berean Study Bible