Nurturing | Agricultural Grace

Week Three: How do you nurture your seeds of faith?

Agricultural Grace | A 5-Week Series

The image of a garden– sowing, planting, and nurturing seeds gives us a way to reflect on our own spiritual growth and the ways that grace shows up in our lives. Sometimes, we need to be reminded that not everything is a quick fix. Growth takes time. Grace transforms. We plant seeds and wait with the truth that God is always with us.

Nurturing | Week Three

Psalm 1

The truly happy person
    doesn’t follow wicked advice,
    doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
    and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
Instead of doing those things,
    these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
    and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
They are like a tree replanted by streams of water,
    which bears fruit at just the right time
    and whose leaves don’t fade.
        Whatever they do succeeds.

That’s not true for the wicked!
    They are like dust that the wind blows away.
And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
    neither will sinners
    in the assembly of the righteous.
The Lord is intimately acquainted
    with the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked is destroyed.

Psalm 1 says we find our joy and delight in meditation upon the law. Wait, what? 

I don’t know about you, but “law” and “delight” are not two words that I typically put together. When we hear the word “law,” what usually comes to mind is a set of rules and regulations. A list of dos and don’ts. Maybe not necessarily a bad thing, but laws are something that are typically behavior-oriented. They are about what we do or don’t do.

The “law” of God, however, is something different. What the Bible calls God’s “law” is not just a list of rules and regulations, but instead, it is God’s purpose for human life. It is a project of love, joy, trust, peace and justice. For the people of Israel, Law was a description of life with God through rules and regulations (yes) but also stories. If you read through the Old Testament, It’s about God’s relationship with God’s people. 

Psalm 1 is saying that a truly happy person, clings to life with God.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

It is not someone who just blindly follows all the rules as if God is a dictator. It is not the rules that are important, but to realize that God’s intention for us is beautiful, joyful, and life-giving. It is about grace and connection.

We’re in the middle of a series talking about agricultural grace. We’ve been looking at this image of planting – unpacking the possibility of the seed of the gospel, the significance of scattering those seeds anywhere and everywhere. Now today, we’re talking about what it means to nurture those seeds.