A Prayer about Gospel Gardening
And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:18)
Jesus, you know my less than stellar history of being a backyard gardener. Like the time I planted the cucumbers and the cantaloupe too close to one another and, through the wonder of cross-pollination, grew either “catacumbers” or “cuculoupes”— an interesting sight but worthless to eat.
However, I praise you that there’s at least one kind of farming for which there’s no possibility of failed crops. When we sow in peace— when we choose to live as gospel gardeners— there’s great assurance of luscious, delectable, righteous fruit.
Jesus, you are the ultimate Peacemaker. Our only hope for a good crop of reconciliation and restoration is entirely bound up with you. I’ve borne the worthless fruit of both my peace-breaking and my peace faking in the past.
Jesus, keep me alive to the peacemaking you have already accomplished between yourself and me. While I was your enemy, you died for me, destroying the hostility, deconstructing the enmity, and displacing my insanity through the gospel of peace. You have reconciled me to yourself through the price of your blood. You have secured the ultimate reconstruction and “shaloming” of my whole being. The coming harvest of glorification is not the least bit in doubt. You will bring to completion the good work you have begun in each of us and your universe. There’s no chance of crop failure, none! Don’t let me forget this hope for one nanosecond.
Give me your patience when gospel gardening takes much longer than I want. Give me courage when you send me to people and situations I want to avoid like canned asparagus. Give me love, your love, for you have called me to people, not to a project. I pray in your peacemaking name, Lord Jesus.
Amen.