My first home, as an adult, was located in Sunland, California. I moved in at the ripe old age of 27. Here’s where my gardening journey began. I was the youth pastor at First Baptist Church of Sunland, now called New Hope Community. The church provided my new home, a simple place with a front yard and a back yard all to myself. Suddenly, I found myself responsible for a plot of land.
My first step, water something. That’s what I had learned in school. All plants need sunshine, water and soil. Sunland, appropriately named, took care of the sun factor. A few plants sat in the soil already. So, I watered. Much to my joy, I discovered one plant on the property was a yellow rose-bush. My first success! A little water each day and roses bloomed. AWESOME! This gardening thing is a cinch.
Water is vital to growth, so vital that Jesus referred to Himself as the living water. Without water, growth is impossible. This was an important step in building my gardening know-how and learning about how God uses the land to teach us. The catch was assuming I required no further knowledge. See, much of the land surrounding that little house was covered with rock-hard dirt containing no previously planted greenery. If all I did was water, I would have been living in a simply darling mud hole. As complete and filling as Jesus’s gift of life is, there are steps He gives us to success which involve more work than simply turning on a hose.
(There’s more to this story)
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