Cultivating an Attitude

Cultivating definitions

1. To prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about (growing plants)

2. To foster the growth of <cultivate vegetables>

• To produce by a culture
• To improve by labor,

3.To care, or study : refine <cultivate the mind>

4. to develop or improve by education or training; train; refine: to cultivate a singing voice.

Definitions by dictionary .com and Miriam- Webster.com

This time of year brings back memories. The cool moist air evokes a time sliding away. When I was young we went to the farm a few times a year. Both my parents grew up on “the farm”.  One of my Grandparents lived on a farm and I had an uncle who still lived on a farm. Talk of planting and growing crops was common. We would drive the surrounding area looking at fields and wondering how the crops would be in the coming year. My lifetime has been a link across centuries. The harvest season jars memories loose like  scenes from the movies, or lyrics from forgotten songs.

I would listen to stories about life at the turn of the century and plow horses, dragging cultivators or plows to break the hard ground. I couldn’t imagine such hard work and yet my grandfather spoke so lovingly about the horses and the feel of the dirt.

There is a feel for tools in the hands of a craftsman. There is tension in the earth, the resistance of the soil to be broken by the plow.  The soil had to be broken to be used, first the top layer and then the clods that remained. The dirt dark and rich had a smell of fertility to it. It was created to produce crops in combination with seed, rain and sun light. The soil had purpose in God’s plan.

I understand the need to cultivate or break up the ground in my life to be useful for God’s purposes. When I am listening well I know with humility I can submit to the plowing of my heart with God’s tools. I trust that he will be gentle and merciful as the stubborn ground of my heart gives way to the plow. Opened and turned for use, ready for the seed to grow and become fruitful. Cultivation was hard work but fruitful in the hands of a master farmer.

Mark 4:1-8   Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. ² He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: ³ “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”        In humility I ask —  Look to be good soil.  Look to be broken ground, we know God has a good purpose in the cultivation of our lives.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus

Grace and Peace – Mike

Photo by greenslaw