Woman to Woman: Growing a Healthy Spiritual Garden

We often take spiritual growth for granted. After becoming Christians, we go to church, read our Bibles, pray, and trust God to complete the good work He began in us. (Philippians 1:6)

But God’s purpose for every believer is steady spiritual growth which requires work on our part in tending our spiritual garden.

Are you growing spiritually?

Do you feel sluggish or stuck in your spiritual walk?

Let’s head to the garden and learn an important practice for a healthy spiritual garden.

As any good gardener will tell you, a beautiful garden requires work! As we plant and sow seeds in our physical gardens, so we plant and sow seeds of faith in our spiritual gardens.

Growing Spiritually Requires Attentiveness

Contemplating the deadheading process and benefits in the garden prompted me to make application in the spiritual realm. Of course, I considered the necessity of weeding; removing insidious hindrances left growing in my spiritual garden, but what would spiritual deadheading look like?

The more I sat with the idea, the more I embraced the appropriateness of the metaphor for the Christian life. The removal of dead, spent works, making room for even more growth. Not so much sinful habits, but removing the remnant of good things now faded, ignites growth.

Growing Spiritually Requires Initiative

As we learn from our plants and shrubs, when deadheading is neglected, they cease to bear fruit or flowers. We experience the same problem in our spiritual lives.

Recently, I noticed this trend in my own spiritual garden. I grow content with the current progress of my growth and service, neglecting the initiative necessary for the robust spiritual growth God expects. The faded blooms of past growth remain, hindering new growth.

Sitting with the question, “Are you growing spiritually”, brought conviction for my lack of diligence in tending my spiritual garden. Join me in Hebrews 12:1-2 for some biblical tips on spiritual deadheading.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

Growing Diligence

For diligence to grow, we must remove carelessness, laziness, or indifference.

Growing content with your spiritual progress, you fall prey to delusion, thinking you accomplished enough. (James 1:22-25) As Hebrews reminds us, we run a race, which requires dedication and diligence to reach the finish line.

Growing Encouragement

Growing encouragement necessitates the removal of hindrances. Things hindering our spiritual growth certainly point to sin, but also those things sapping our energy, attention, and time for godly pursuits.

Examine how you spend your free time, your money, and your talents. God gives us good things for enjoyment, but when the enjoyment becomes the focal point, it hinders our spiritual growth. (1 John 2:15-17)

Growing Perseverance

If you desire the cultivation of perseverance, remove uncertainty and indecisiveness. Inconsistency in Bible reading, and prayer also causes wavering in our commitment to growth.

Our race is one of endurance which requires steadfast determination even when things get tough. (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

Lingering in the garden with the question, “Are you growing spiritually “, yielded not only more knowledge of caring for my physical garden better, but tending to my spiritual garden.

Noticing the stagnant blooms in my life hindering the new growth God desired for me, prompted renewed diligence in keeping my spiritual garden.

Adding encouragement free of hindrances and perseverance in the steadfast nurturing of my faith.

All reminders for avoiding spiritual complacency and contentment with the status quo. I leave you with the same question,

“Are you growing spiritually?”

Reflection:

Which areas of your spiritual need special attention right now?

What is your greatest area of struggle in perseverance?