LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, July 3, 2025

I haven’t had a garden for several years. The local Farmer’s Market seems to have better stuff than I can grow. The last year that I had a garden the production was spotty. I had the best tomato plant ever, and the green peppers were good, and the potatoes were bountiful, but there were some things that were terrible. The beans were a bust. The peas were pathetic. And the zucchini were literally squashed. I had the biggest zucchini plants ever and they bloomed profusely, but only one out of every twenty blooms produced a fruit. I miss my stir fried zucchini.

As I reflect on what went wrong, I am stumped. I prepared the soil. It was very fertile, mixed with compost. Maybe it’s too fertile and is just producing top growth – I don’t know. I planted in the right places. There was plenty of rain that summer. What went wrong? How come we can do everything right and still not get blessed with a bountiful harvest?

That last question applies to more than just gardens. It teaches us an eternal principle that God wants us to know. Here it is – Our plans and preparations are meaningless and unproductive unless God is our priority.

Isaiah 17:10-11  “You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.”

We can argue that in our mind and with others all we want, but the truth is unless we are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and building our lives on the Solid Rock, everything we do will ultimately fail and be destroyed. It doesn’t matter how technologically advanced we become. It doesn’t help that we do all the scientific research to increase productivity. It makes absolutely no difference that we have all the administrative and organizational skills to plan for every possible contingency. If your life isn’t centered on Jesus Christ, and if your hope and strength aren’t in Him alone, all you are doing is feeding futility.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is in the little book of Hosea. It says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.”

So get out your spiritual roto-tiller (some of us might need roto-rooters), dig up the hard ground of your heart, and plant the seeds of God’s productive priorities. When you do, the harvest is guaranteed.

Pastor John