Richard looked out his front window every day to see a rocky, sandy yard devoid of anything green except for a few weeds that persisted in coming up despite his faithfully applying weed killer.

One day Richard decided he had enough of the dry desert sand and wanted to see beautiful green plants growing in his yard.  He drove to his local plant nursery and talked to one of the employees about what he could do to change his yard.  The plant expert showed Richard the most desert hardy plants available.  Once established they would do fine without any added water.  Unfortunately,  Richard didn’t like how those plants looked, he preferred the plants that required more water.  So the plant man explained how Richard would need to add soil amendments to his desert soil and put in an underground watering system for the plants.  That seemed like an awful lot of work to Richard and expensive as well so he nodded his head in agreement with the expert but decided to just buy the water dependant plants and put them in without the amendments or water system.  He had seen such beautiful plants in other peoples yards and it certainly didn’t look like they had worked that hard to make them grow.

Richard thanked the plant man for helping him and then proceeded to push a cart through the nursery picking out the plants he wanted.  He checked out and hurried home to transplant his new acquisitions.  The ground was hard and dry and digging a hole deep enough to put the plants in proved difficult.  Some of the holes he dug weren’t quite big enough to cover all the plant roots but he shoved the plants in as far as they would go and moved on.   The sun was getting hotter by the moment and he was ready to go inside to the air-conditioned house.

After dropping all the plants into the ground he went inside to cool down and grab a cold drink.  He sat down in his favorite chair and quickly dozed off after all the hard work of planting.  When he awoke the next morning he excitedly remembered his new plants.  He looked outside in anticipation only to be disappointed by the sight of very wilted plants.  He needed to get to work,  but he quickly sprayed them with a little water before jumping in his car and speeding down the freeway.  The temperatures reached a record high that day and when  Richard arrived home very few of the plants had survived.  Richard threw in the towel and angrily stomped into the house.  He wouldn’t bother watering what was left, it would just be a waste of time anyway.  His conscience pricked him a little, maybe he should have spent the money on soil amendments and a watering system after all or just gone ahead and bought the drought resistant plants the plant expert had recommended.  He looked outside and sighed deciding that gardening wasn’t for him.  He just didn’t have a green thumb like  those few people who had lush green yards.

We can all have a beautiful growing connection with God if we just trust Him enough to obey Him.  Proverbs 3: 5-6 tells us, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path.”  And Jesus tells us in John 14:23,  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” 

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.  Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.  Isaiah 26:3

Let Him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.  1 Peter 5:7

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.  1 Corinthians 1:25