Gardening thoughts - finding the un-plowed ground

As I research and pray about where our studies will lead us, I had some springtime thoughts I wanted to share . . .

Are there some "unplowed" portions of our hearts?
Let me explain what I'm talking about.

Sow righteousness for yourselves,    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 his righteousness on you. (Hosea 10:2, NIV)

In the midst of the winter, you will sometimes find me, breaking up and amending the soil in different spots around our farm. These may be areas that I want to naturalize with jonquils, or it may be my vegetable garden plot. It's hard work, to be sure. It takes time. First, some months back, there should have been some compost and mulch layered on top of the ground. Then after some time passes, I attack it with a pitchfork (grin) and try to dig down below the mulch and bring up (turn over) some of the clay soil below. A hoe is indispensable as the chunks of clay need to be broken up and blended with the soil conditioners. Sometimes even the mulch we use can have roots of old weeds growing in it, and these must be sifted out and removed before the job is finished.

There is not much to look at when the work is done. Nothing is growing yet. It's still gray and brown, dreary like the rest of the winter landscape. But the potential is there.

As believers, we may find it easy to forget that in order to have the fruits of the Spirit grow in our lives, we have to let God do some hard work in our hearts. It's not easy; in fact, it is sometimes downright painful. We won't always see the purpose of the work right away....
In the past year, I have felt God at work in my heart. He has turned over a good bit of unplowed ground. He has been sifting out some deep-rooted sins that need to be removed.

From the outside, I might have looked like fairly good soil. But it's the sins that we hide from others, from ourselves, that are the hardest to pull out -- He knows about these hidden sins that we keep private. Sins like pride, jealousy, self-righteousness, resentment of others -- He digs for these and softens our hearts with grace in order to pull the weeds out.
"But I've turned over my life to God!" we may be thinking. "I know I see fruit in my life."
Is that enough?
God will always ask us to draw nearer to Him, and to give Him more of ourselves. He'll ask us to break up that unplowed ground and let Him work in areas that we've tried to hide from Him.

You see, that garden spot with the mulch dumped on top, waiting for us to work on it, may look pretty good. We can hope that the mulch smothers some of the weeds below. We can hope that it traps moisture and begins to soften the soil underneath. But any experienced gardener knows that the only way to make sure the weeds are gone is to pull them out -- roots and all! And they also know that the only way to make certain the soil and mulch are blended is to do the hard work of turning the soil and blending the layers together - to plow the ground.
It's that way with our hearts, too. It's tempting to just cover up the sins, the bad attitudes, and the other heart problems with a facade of righteousness and cheer. But it's the hard work of plowing and removing the sins that will enable us to have "quality soil" and a harvest of spiritual fruits.

Hosea reminds us to break up that unplowed ground. Allow God to work in our hearts. It may hurt some -- He will use people, scripture, and circumstances to take care of the rocky places of sin. But we can then protect our hearts; we can fill in the gaps in the dirt, so to speak, by taking in His Word and spending time in His presence.

As the Master Gardener, He will not pull weeds and walk away. He will plant, and He will tend. Hosea says that He will shower righteousness on us so that we can experience a wonderful harvest: "the fruit of unfailing love."

for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6b)