Growing Where Planted.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud Link.

“I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted….” 
Amos 9:15, New International Version

I had the raspberry starts, and a newly-built raised bed that was only partially filled because, among other things, that’s all the soil I had at the moment.  However, the plants needed to be in the ground.

I feel like this bed at times.  Unfinished, but still functioning.  You have likely seen that bumper sticker that says something like, “Be patient, God isn’t done with me yet.”  I’m not done with this raised bed, or its neighbor which is now attached to the open left end.  I still need to finish filling it with soil.  However, the soil that’s in it can still be working to nourish those raspberries.

We wait too long, sometimes, in our spiritual journey.  We think we aren’t smart enough, we don’t pray enough, we don’t have enough of the Bible (or the Catechism) memorized, we aren’t full enough of something important, or what we really can’t say.

God has planted you where you are.  Your spiritual roots are in the rich soil of Jesus the Messiah.  You have spiritual mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers surrounding you with prayer and encouragement.  The Lord himself waters you with the continuing power of Baptismal grace.  You are planted firmly in the garden of the Lord’s own heart.

The raspberries in this picture will bear fruit next year.  You will bear fruit today.  Your smile, the gentle grace of your prayers for another, the heart that beats in you with the beating of God’s own love, the song of joy and wonder that is the product of your own journey with Christ and His with you—they join together and produce the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of grace and mercy, the fruit of a forgiving spirit, and the fruit of acceptance and generosity. They join together so that you, uniquely new in God’s new creation, will bless others with the fruit of your life in Jesus.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, CO