check your soil
*originally published in Truly Magazine, Spring 2020, Leadership Issue
Though most of us probably aren’t farmers and may not even have a green thumb, each of us will sow and harvest crops in our lives. Good leaders are natural planters. Be it in careers, spiritual growth, friendships, marriage, or parenting, there will always be ground for us to plant the seeds the Lord has placed in our care.
For me, the idea of “checking my soil” started almost as a mantra—a cadence in every situation I found myself during the spring a few years ago. As I led, walked the neighborhood, parented, I would hear with every step, “Check your soil, check your soil.” Sometimes just a whisper, sometimes like a drumbeat, it was an ever-present theme in everything I did.
Confession time.
Confession #1: When the Lord whispers something cryptic to me like, “Check your soil,” my first inclination is not to fall on my knees and seek him. I almost always look up and with furrowed brows ask, “What the heck does that mean?!” (Seriously. You can all pray for me.)
Alas, he didn’t answer my question. He just kept the track on repeat until I started to look—to really look—at soil. Did you know Minnesota soil is beautiful? It’s dark and full of nutrients. It’s soft and eager to grow plants wherever the sun can catch a glimpse.
I began to learn that there are a few ways to tell how your soil is doing. For example, you can send a soil sample to a lab, and they will tell you about your nutrients and what additives will best help plants to grow. I promise you can do that—I met a lady at Bachman's who tried to give me a test tube for a soil sample. She is much more committed to dirt than I. Plus, I lack follow-through.
Another way to understand soil is to look at the plants that are already there. (I learned this a long time ago from famed KARE 11 meteorologist and gardener Belinda Jensen, who I happened to catch on TV when channel surfing was real and Netflix was delivered to your mailbox. I obviously dig deep in my soil research.) The known temperament of the plant will tell you why it’s thriving in that location. Does it like water? Is it reaching for sunlight? Do the leaves seem small? What color is it?
As I was observing the soil in my yard, I began to examine the plants in my spiritual life. Are shrubs of grumbling and complaining thriving? Is overgrown impatience choking out the good fruit?
Application: #1: Jesus talks about the importance of soil in the spiritual realm in Luke 8, Matthew 13, and Mark 4. Read Luke 8:1–15 and pay attention to the four soils that are outlined. Pull out a notebook and define each soil: trampled soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil.
Confession #2: I had soil that was fertile ground for thorny plants. As I worked in my garden that summer, I was surrounded by thistles—thorny and scratchy weeds that develop and deploy roots before a shoot is even visible. Deep and three-pronged, they were difficult to remove because of the depth of the root as well as the sting of the thorn when you pulled.
I soon realized that even though I thought I was getting to the root of those stinkers, I was leaving enough of a remnant for the thistle to gain ground and pop up again. My friend who grew up on a farm in Iowa finally gave me the answer.
Salt.
Cut the weed at an angle just at the base and cover the cut with a tablespoon of salt. Turns out thistles thrive in damp soil and the salt dries them up.
Salt makes the soil uninhabitable for thistles.
As I poured salt onto the weeds, I began to beg God to similarly pour salt on my worries and on my insatiable desire for comfort. I begged God to dry up my life-choking self-obsession at the root. To actually change the soil in my spirit and make it hospitable for his word to take root and thrive!
Application #2: How does the soil feel at your house? In your heart? In your leadership? Are you dry and tired? Feeling trampled and exposed, as if everything that is planted gets scattered? Or maybe you’ve been planting despite the rocks and weeds? Go ahead, write it down. How’s your soil?
My soil is ______________________________________.
Oh boy, did the lesson of self-examination hit me hard! Since then, when I go through seasons when growth seems stagnant, I come back to this lesson. Often, I discover I’m fighting the very soil I’ve planted myself in—dodging rocks and thistles.
Look around. What do you see? What can you do to stay soft to the Lord and his promises?
Don’t miss your opportunity for growth! Cultivate your soil through worship, memorizing the Word, praying, serving. Keep a tender spirit and persistently dig up weeds. Friends, God is faithful to grow what he plants. Belinda and Bachman’s have nothing on his mad gardening skills. He just asks you to check your soil.
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