Companion Planting

Like so many across the nation, we’ve been impacted by the freezing temperatures this past week. Yesterday morning, we woke up to no water. Our pipes had frozen. After calming the mass hysteria of my people, and uttering a prayer, I reached out to my “tribe” and asked them to pray too. Because there is strength in numbers (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Before I knew what was happening a friend’s husband was on the phone with Nathan and driving over to our house. He spent all day, in below freezing temperatures, helping us get our water running again.

A few months ago, as I was reading my mind began its rumination and an image came to me (I think in pictures). In so many of Jesus’ parables, he taught through illustrations of agriculture, plowing, sowing, pruning, seasons, harvests.

I’ve always envisioned myself working in my own garden, sun beating down, sweat dripping from my brow, but alone. This time it was like zooming out a camera lens. It was one big garden. Like a community garden you see in the city, but with no separation or barriers.

I’m beginning to realize this is what the church is supposed to look like. But, we’re not all growing a little bit of everything in our designated plot. He’s given us each specific assignments.

I’ve been assigned to grow root vegetables-potatoes and beets, but a few sections over he has our friends tending raspberries and blackberries. He’s assigned someone else over in the orchards a specific variation of apples. Broccoli has been assigned to yet someone else.

And where we’ve been placed, isn’t an accident. We’ve been strategically companion planted. Per Google, Companion planting helps your garden thrive by pairing plants that support each other, improving growth and deterring pests.

Our address, families, communities, workplaces, churches are intentional. I can’t survive on beets and potatoes alone. I need the antioxidants from those sweet ripe berries, the fiber from fresh apples, the essential vitamins from broccoli. They keep me healthy and flourishing.

What we’ve been assigned to isn’t only for us, but for others. The more we weed, fertilize, and tend our assignments determines the health of our fruits and veggies and ultimately our crop yield. It’s the parable of talents in action. Matthew 25:14-30.

Here’s the crazy thing that happened yesterday. Our friends were also having water issues. As our friend was getting ready to leave, his wife called. She told him their water had started running too. That’s how God works. The world and new age call it karma, but it’s the principal of sowing and reaping. Galatians 6:7

Sometimes in our gardening journeys we hit a drought, run out of fertilizer, a plague of blight hits, and we have to call out to our neighbors for help. Our friend brought his “water” yesterday and in his obedience, God restored their water. I’ve found when God asks us to do something, he’ll always supply and then replenishes to an overflow. Because it’s not ours anyway, it’s his. We’re just the vessels.

I’ve learned to remain aware. We can’t get so focused on our assignments we forget to look up and around. Most people don’t ask for help. So, you’ll have to look for it. You’ll see the need in their absence, the look of loneliness or weariness in their eyes, it will be in what they don’t say.

Don’t miss it. They need what you’re growing. You’ve been placed and positioned for such a time as this.

1 Corinthians 3:6-8 “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.”

John 15:5-8 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing…”