Shoots of righteousness

Iain Jamieson April 29, 2025 7 2

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Isaiah 61: 11 (NIVUK)

11 

For as the soil makes the young plant come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Mrs J is the gardener in our household. I do not, it is fair to say, have green fingers. It’s not that I don’t have the time or patience, but it is perhaps that I don’t have time, and I don’t have patience. 

There’s a thing I’ve been figuring out recently. Mrs J rejoices in the growing of things. For her, the simple joy of planting a thing and watching it grow is like a prayer and the resulting bloom the answer to it.

I’ve found myself thinking, that’s how she is as a wife as well. She tended to our garden, our family, as they grew, it was her prayer and watching them now, as independent young men, as they usher in a new generation, that prayer is the harvest.

Here’s the thing, I love the garden and I love the harvest and as I grow older, I wish my prayers had been more rooted in the ground and more rooted in my family. I think Mrs J had it right all these years; she is embedded in the harvest, she has been rewarded for her labours. So have I, but that is the meaning of grace. I have been rewarded with a harvest when at best I was an overseer.

How much better to have your hands planted in the soil or gathering up the cries of small children? I don’t know. 

I thank God for grace though, because the harvest is there for us all, the beauty of the garden in summer is there for us all to find. 

Maybe be a planter though brothers and sisters, the fruit might taste just that tiny bit sweeter. But only a tiny bit.

Prayer:

Father God

Let me reap though sometimes I forget to sow (properly)

Let me enjoy the bounty of your love though sometimes I forget to ask (properly)

Thank you for loving me and providing for me (properly)