Thursday Thoughts - Gardening and the Sabbath Year

Gardening and the Sabbath Year


The Lord gave a long list of 613 laws for his chosen people to follow in order to please him. While we as Gentiles are not bound by these laws, they still hold much wisdom that we can use in our lives. One of these instructions is to only farm a piece of land for 6 consecutive years before allowing it to be fallow for a year. This 7th year is the Sabbath Year. Blessed are those who obey without knowledge! They obey because they fear and trust in God! Unfortunately, I’m a little more hard headed.

While learning more about gardening these past few years, I am amazed at how he has orchestrated his creation. Even atheist gardeners recommend allowing the land to rebuild itself and replenish the microorganisms in the soil. Science has proven that the Sabbath Year is a good for the dirt, but what about the people? Is it good for us? Where will we get our food?

Let me share with you what I have experienced and how that has reminded me how great God is! This past year was a terrible year for our garden. The first half of the summer was dry. It felt wonderful! The low humidity caused my spirits to stay as high as the water bill. We dumped water on the garden and made practically no progress. Then the floodgates opened. The second half of the summer was making up for the dry first half. So this is what the Farmer’s Almanac meant by a wet summer. We had just enough to eat throughout the summer. My dozens and dozens of quart mason jars remained unfilled with veggies.

This doesn’t mean that the pantry stayed empty! The wild blackberries growing on the fence line produced a bumper crop. We picked enough to make cobbler and syrup. The apple and pear trees at my husband’s parents’ house next door had more than enough fruit for both households. (There were enough to share with the children at church who were learning about the fruit of the spirit) We were invited to pick gallons of blueberries with friends of the family and with cousins. We celebrated summer with blueberry pancakes and blueberry ice cream. Another friend had so many plums on her trees that she was picking them and giving them away. We had enough to make several cobblers and jelly! There was even a cold afternoon spent picking up pounds of pecans in my aunt’s front yard this winter.

You see, this year was El Nino, a weather pattern that only occurs every 7 years. Are you wheels turning yet? The Lord has made it so that when we follow his plan, we are not disappointed with poor gardens, we rejoice with the bounty of all of the trees! We set aside that gardening year to reflect on how the Lord has taken such good care of us. Perhaps all of this extra rain that is turning my yard into Shrek’s playground could be aiding that replenishing of the soil. Perhaps it is helping everything to compost. Perhaps God can take care of us better than we can take care of ourselves.

Yes, I know that He can!