Grab a Plow! Part 1

So I prayed about how to start a garden. My grandmother had a huge garden when I was a child. I guess I didn't help much with it because I don't know a thing about gardening. I remember digging near the garden. I dug with that shovel like I was really doing something.  I dug until I hit an orange layer of soil. Shoooot! I was no fool. I stopped digging. I knew that red would follow the orange layer and if the ground was red . . . I would dig my way right into Hell. Phew! That was close.

I can't imagine what I would have thought if I had lived in Alabama at that time instead of Illinois. There sure is a lot of red soil in Alabama. Just sayin'.

That was my gardening experience. I liked the greens, okree, and tomatoes from the garden.  That was all I knew. So now I want to plant a spiritual garden and I haven't a clue how to begin. I realized that the Word, of course, is the seed and the heart/soul is the ground or soil. But I wanted to relate this spiritual thing to a natural thing to help me understand it. So I prayed. My answer came soon by way of an audiobook -- Praying God's Word by Beth Moore. They read the scripture from Jeremiah 4:3

For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:

      “ Break up your fallow ground,
      And do not sow among thorns. NKJV

Eureka! That's how you start a garden. So I searched for that scripture and found it said more.

³ This is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem:

   “Break up your unplowed ground
   and do not sow among thorns.
⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the LORD,
   circumcise your hearts,
   you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem,
or my wrath will break out and burn like fire
   because of the evil you have done—
   burn with no one to quench it.  

                                Jeremiah 4:3-4 NIV

There's the heart thing. Get the junk out or your hard heart. Soften your heart. Prepare your heart by letting it be for God, otherwise whatever good is planted in your heart will be planted among weeds that will choke its growth. I get it now. 

     But wait! 

                  There's more!

Hosea 10:12-13 NKJV says:

¹² Sow for yourselves righteousness;
      Reap in mercy;
      Break up your fallow ground,
      For it is time to seek the LORD,
      Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
       ¹³ You have plowed wickedness;
      You have reaped iniquity.
      You have eaten the fruit of lies,
      Because you trusted in your own way,
      In the multitude of your mighty men.

The New Living Translation (NLT) version breaks it down like this:

 ¹² I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness,
      and you will harvest a crop of love.
   Plow up the hard ground of your hearts,
      for now is the time to seek the Lord,
   that he may come
      and shower righteousness upon you.’

 ¹³ “But you have cultivated wickedness
      and harvested a thriving crop of sins.
   You have eaten the fruit of lies—
      trusting in your military might,
   believing that great armies
      could make your nation safe.

I love that! "Plow up the hard ground of your hearts." That's something to think about.  I'd better get to plowin'