Teaching Tuesday / Gardening Lessons to Live By: Kid's Seed Time & Harvest

Olivia hoeing the garden. Elijah measuring the Sunflowers. Janiah picking the 1st squash!

This year in school Ruth has did an amazing job doing hands-on learning with her students, Olivia, Elijah, and Janiah. The most impressive and most educational by far was their horticulture class in which they planted their own garden. Under Ruth's careful supervision, they did everything from tilling the soil by hand, planting the seeds, labeling their garden rows, pulling weeds, watering, fertilizing, and now finally it's harvest time for their hard labor. They just picked their first squash which they had named Junior. They're just waiting on Junior's brothers, sisters, and cousins to get large enough, and then it's fried squash for lunch!

With all the gardening, I was reminded of a teaching that I did with some of the older kids about 17 years ago. I was sharing with them that just because you can't see what God's doing that doesn't mean that He's not working. We had just planted some corn, and every day the children impatiently asked me when it was going to come up. When were they going to be able to "see" it growing? After several days of this, I knelt down and dug up one of the little kernels of corn that we had planted. It had swollen in size. Roots were growing from it, and a beginning shoot of a corn stalk had begun to sprout from the heart of the little swollen kernel. I explained to the kids that "SEE" , even though everything looked the same, God was doing a lot even though we couldn't see what was happening, because it was hidden. So many times He's working, but we can't see what He's doing, and we get discouraged. Just like for several days, my children were discouraged. They couldn't see what was happening beneath the soil, so they assumed nothing was happening.

As parents we can make the same mistake. We teach and train, scold and discipline, but there are times that it seems as if our children just aren't getting it. We pray; we counsel, and pray some more! Seemingly, all to no avail. Be encouraged, Dear Parent, we have so many promises from our sweet Heavenly Father in His Word. I love this one in Galatians 6:9 (TPT):

"And don't allow yourselves to be weary or disheartened in planting good seeds, for the season of reaping the wonderful harvest your've planted is coming!"

See the Promise of your harvest! Don't be impatient like my children were about their corn. You keep sowing Godly seeds in your children, teaching them to pray and love Jesus, and if you are faithful in that we have another promise!

"Train up a child in the way he should go [teaching him to seek God's wisdom and will for his abilities and talents], even when he is old he will not depart from it."(Proverbs 22:6 /AMP)

You have know idea how many times with how many of my children that PROMISE had brought me such peace and comfort. It's our job to plant seeds in our children's hearts, and to water those seeds with His Word. We are to cultivate a love for God and Jesus into their tender little souls , while they are young. We are to diligently remove and then teach them to remove every weed of bad, fleshly habits from their lives. We are to cover them in prayer. Just like we pray and ask God to bless our garden, then patiently wait for our crop to mature for harvest, so that it will feed many at our table. So too, we must pray and patiently wait for the harvest of our diligent labor in our children's lives to come to full fruition, so that their lives will feed many people spiritually. I don't know about you, but for me I wholeheartedly agree with III John 1:4 (TPT),

"It is the greatest joy of my life to hear that my children are consistently living their lives in the ways of truth!"

So, I want to just encourage you, dear parents, to keep on keeping on with sowing those good seeds into your children's hearts. Just as sure as there is a SEED TIME, there is also a HARVEST TIME. Our Daddy God has promised!

#TeachingTuesday #KidsSeedTimeandHarvest #GardeningLessonsToLiveBy