Our Farmer, Who Art in Heaven

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Horticultural references are buried deep in Scripture. Paul talks about about seeds being planted, watered, and grown by the Lord and men. Jesus lays down the parable of environments conducive for growing in grace those who believe.

Turning back a few pages, I’ve longed loved the hope in Habakkuk’s poetry: Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food…yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation (3:17-18).  What rich reminder of God’s goodness through the seasons.

And likewise from the word communicated to Jeremiah in the book’s first chapter about the Lord watching over the almond trees, over the fulfillment of His words.

I like to think that sometimes, our God wears overalls. His hands are dirty from being knuckle deep in our messes. He’s on His knees, fingers immersed in the soil of our lives, and he’s always regenerating newness out of dead earth.

There’s something about the fall season that just stirs me like nothing else. I love the picture of foliage shouting in splendor before it descends to its timely death: nature’s final exhale. New life always requires a preceding death.

This marinating thought was recently matched in another verse from Jeremiah, this time in the fourth chapter. The prophet here is faced with communicating an unsavory message to the people of Judah. Intentional sin has lead to impending doom—attack from the North and exile to a foreign land. Jeremiah pleads with the people to own up to their sinful ways, to remember the Lord, and turn back to Him, saving themselves and their home.

With this message he cries out in verse three:

Break up your unplowed ground, and do not sow among thorns.

He implores them to dust off the rake and hoe, to put some muscle into preparing their lives for rebirth. Green can’t grow on fallow ground. Work must be done. Ends must be met.

I’m just grateful for this truth revealed: in God’s word to us (implanted in us), in what’s happening out our very windows. Good news, fellow laborers. God, the farmer has His boots on the ground, roughing  up our complacency, preparing our fields.