Mark Sorensen Have you ever had one of those days that coming home, kicking off your shoes, and hitting the couch can’t come quick enough? Guess what. Pastors have those days, too.
Last week I pulled up to my house, grabbed the mail, and walked up to my front door. As I stuck my key in the door, my dreams of relaxation and unwinding were quickly interrupted by a rather pungent smell. Imagine my surprise when there, by the door, I discovered a large bag of what I quickly discovered to be manure. Yes. Manure. Now, we just purchased this home. I wasn’t sure if it was a welcoming gift from the neighbors on our street. Perhaps it was Swayze? He lives in our neighborhood (come on, that guy has mischievous written all over him, right?). As my mind began to run, my wife walked in the door behind me and solved the mystery with a single exclamation: ”Ah, GREAT! The manure has arrived!” Apparently, it was a friend of hers who happens to raise chickens who dropped off the gift at the Sorensen front door. The rather potent spread was compost for our garden that we’re working on in the backyard.
Flash forward to last Monday. As I was working in our garden incorporating said “gift” into the soil, it occurred to me that there’s something deeply beautiful in a garden. That manure in a bag, if left untouched, is just that: manure. Yet, when you go through the rather uncomfortable act of incorporating it into the soil, planting the seeds and watering the dirt, amazingly, beauty comes forth and it is good.
Isn’t God amazing?
He welcomes our dirt, our brokenness, and our sin, and offers to replace it with seeds of mercy, grace and forgiveness, found in the soil of victory given through Jesus Christ. And on the other side of it all? There’s growth, beauty, and goodness.
So perhaps there’s something in your life that doesn’t smell great right now. Let me encourage you.
Get those garden gloves on and hold that mess up to the Lord. He’s ready to take it and – you had better believe – He’s ready to make something beautiful out of it in ways that only He knows.
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
