How Good Is Your Soil? … Hello weekend readers. I am musing on dirt, you know, the soil that gives us all kinds of veggies and fruits and so much more. The reason for this is, Thanksgiving is around the corner and it’s one of my favorite holidays.

Why? A gathering without any gifts required (no tinsel, no flashing lights—you know what I mean). We gather to eat and we do it together. In our society today, sitting down to eat together is often a by-gone experience. So, when Thanksgiving comes, it is definitely special, and without soil, well, what would we eat outside of the Turkey?

When I make Thanksgiving food, one of my favorites is cinnamon because without it, the pumpkin pie would lose its flavor. Did you know that the Magnolia Tree is considered one of the most fragrant and beautiful trees in the South? Its fragrance is cinnamon and vanilla! When I was in Georgia for a ministry retreat, those white blossoms that dot every home’s landscape captured me, both with their fragrance and their beauty.

But I learned that there is another side to this tree for the owners who have them. They must have a constant test of the soil because in hot humid weather, that soil changes the fragrance of the tree because the soil is rotten. I encountered a few of those trees and you could see the trunk’s rot and smell it as well-whew! No white blossoms either. A healthy Magnolia tree gives you that aroma—a fragrance you want to sit under the tree and sniff that fragrance, which is what I did often that week.

It’s a good thing I don’t garden much because, as I have shared, I have a brown thumb. My soil would not be the healthy dirt for the vegetables and fruits we love. I leave that to Al who has a ‘green thumb’ on every finger!

In Luke 8:15 Jesus talks about soil. Remember when he told a story in the form of a parable of a farmer scattering seed and shared it with a large crowd that had gathered from many towns to hear him? I read 10 translations about this parable, and the translation called ‘God’s Word’ [GW] captured my heart and stuck in my mind: “The seeds that were planted on good ground are people who also hear the word. But they keep it in their good and honest hearts and produce what is good despite what life may bring.”

I had to ask myself “How healthy is the soil of my heart? Ask yourselves the same thing. What does it feel like? For me, confronting that question almost knocked me to my knees. I don’t want to reveal what is unseen, but my revelation was up and front before my very eyes and I felt ashamed, and mad at myself. The only thing I could hang on to was my cries to Jesus: “O Jesus, I need you, I’ve got some stinky soil. I am struggling with anger and fear. I seem to keep holding on with ugly episodes of my life’s path and I know it is poisoning my spiritual soil. I need help!”

What bad soil is poisoning your future? What are some things in your heart keeping good fruit from growing in your life? Are you harboring ugly attitudes and thoughts? Like the Magnolia Tree, there is no future for them if that soil is not carefully and lovingly tended every spring. Our loving God wants to produce good fruit in our lives because God wants our lives to be filled with blessings beyond what we all could never imagine. But there is a caveat: that good fruit can only flourish in healthy soil.

The good news for us all is this: God can till and nurture our hearts so it becomes a healthier foundation for our spiritual growth. Ask God to fill your heart and mind with the good things that reflect God’s character so you can share God’s ‘good soil’ with others. And always remember to trust in God because God wants to grow something beautiful in your life today and every day! AMEN.