Leaning Towards the Light

Last spring we decided to expand our garden and make it bigger. We spent hours cutting back the sod, leveling out the ground and prepping it. Our neighbors were even getting rid of garden bricks and I took them up on their offer to take some of them off their hands.

Fast forward to now, the spring of 2020, and the garden is finally starting to look like a healthy place to grow fruits and veggies after more hours of shoveling and spreading healthy new garden soil.

One thing we decided to do this year that I haven’t in the past, is grow our own veggie starts in the house. I had seen this DIY to use empty toilet paper rolls for starts and decided to give it a try. And so far, it has worked great! Once they are mature enough, they will be transplanted planted directly into the garden, tube and all.

The other day while I was watering these veggie starts I noticed how these tiny fragile plants were leaning, straining, bending, towards the light of the window. They were leaning towards their source of energy.

Many of us are very familiar with photosynthesis and the importance sunlight has on plants. Without it, they cannot grow. If you take a mature plant that is well rooted and beautiful and remove it from its source of fuel, the sun, it will die. Without sufficient light, it cannot live to its full potential and will wither away to nothing.

You can take that same healthy plant, full of life, vegetation and beauty and place it partially in the light. It gets some energy, but not enough to give it full life. It begins to struggle, shrink back, and lose what it had grown into. It battles between life and death.

It is the same with you and me! The difference is WE have the CHOICE on whether or not we will lean in to the Light of Life (John 8:12) or away from it. We have the CHOICE on whether or not we will dig our roots deep (Colossians 2:6-7) into the Word that will sustain us, or allow our roots to shrivel up and die. We have a CHOICE on whether we will open the shades and let God’s Light produce fruit in our lives or close the shades and hide, which will only produce death. WE have the CHOICE on how we will sow the seed of Truth (Matthew 13) that has been planted in our hearts. Will we allow thorns, weeds, and other things to take root as well? Or will we tend to that seed, being careful to not allow the things of this world to take root and choke out Truth?

My friends, we have a CHOICE. We are not like plants that do not decide where they will grow. We can either lean towards the light or away from it. We can produce life or death. We can grow deep strong roots that when the worries of this world (Matthew 13:22) try and engulf us, WE ARE NOT SHAKEN. But it comes down to a choice: lean towards the light and produce life, or lean away from it producing only death. Don’t miss this Life producing Light. It produces a GREAT harvest. One that mere humans cannot explain. It is magnificent. More beautiful than the most beautiful garden on the face of this earth. Leaning into the Light of Life produces a great harvest!

But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:7