Lessons in Hope from a Backyard Gardener

I like to garden. I mean, I REALLY enjoy gardening.

Perhaps it’s the feel of a rough, wooden hoe handle against my fingers, sanding away softness and creating calluses which remind me of my grandfather’s hands, hands which always held great comfort, experience and wisdom. Those hands that could make anything grow, no matter how hard the soil. And they did their fair share of cultivation in my own life as well.

Or maybe it’s the excitement of a four year old discovering a secret subterranean world of earthworms and grubs as he digs potatoes.

Oh, and compost, glorious compost. Ahh.

(I need therapy, I know.)

Maybe it’s the smell of rich, dark, freshly turned soil, or the first flash of bright, defiant green breaking the earthen plane, boldly declaring to winter that though her icy fingers were persistent and her winds blew with violent ferocity, they could not hold back the eventual and sure dawning of a new Spring.

Yes, I think that’s getting closer to it. In a word, I guess the practice of gardening reminds me to…. hope.

Hebrews 11 says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²For by it the people of old received their commendation. ³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

When I begin prepping my plots, there is still a chill in the air. When those first seeds are placed in the soil, the trees have not yet tipped their hand towards Spring by showing forth their new buds. Gardening often begins when there is little evidence suggesting that winter is yet over.

And yet it is not a completely blind leap. Because of past experience, I do know Spring is coming. My hope is, as the ESV Study Bible puts it, “not a vague hope grounded in imaginary, wishful thinking.” Rather it is “a settled confidence that something in the future – something that is not yet seen but has been promised by God - will actually come to pass because God will bring it about.”

How can I know this? Because He has proven himself faithful in the past, both in my own story as well as in countless stories revealed to us within His Word. Because of God’s “observable track record” I know that He is worthy of the hope I place in Him.

Gardening can remind us to hope. It can remind us that in our own winters when icy fingers are attempting to grip our soul and the ferocious winds of fear and despair are seeking to assault our spirit that there is such a thing as Spring. And the warmth and new life that characterize this yet unseen season are just as sure as the cold wind which may be all too real today.

Yes…. hope. Spring IS coming. And honestly, sometimes we could use the reminder.