Cultivate: One Word 2014

      you are God's garden and vineyard and field under cultivation...

I Corinthians 3:9b

   

      

I was a little girl on the plains of central Nebraska. We had winters with snow drifts the size of buses, pivot sprinklers to splash in (if we dared), and an old barn to explore. 

My dad was one of those hard-working farmers who worked from sun-up to sun-down. I never asked him outright, but I know he loved his job. He lived by the seasons and enjoyed the gifts each one brought. 

Fall, he said, was his favorite. He did tell me that. Harvest was the pinnacle of the whole years’ hard labor. 

 In winter the ground sat fallow and frozen like the tundra. 

And spring, well, spring was my favorite. The smell of dirt would be fresh in the air as the neighboring farmers and my dad would be out in the field preparing the soil for the year’s fresh crop of corn.

With a disc attached to his tractor, Dad would break up the dirt that was now unfrozen, but hardened by winter's unuse.

Then, he would hook up the planter to the tractor and there he would go. Sun up to sun down, day after day, coffee time after coffee time to plant those seeds in the good soil.

I loved this green machine with eight green buckets in a row hooked onto the tractor. In each bucket was the seed corn. In each seed corn was a stalk just waiting for God to grow it.

Next job on the list for my dad in the spring was cultivating. On his tractor and pulling this contraption, he would take to the fields to attack the weeds that were threatening to choke out the tender seedlings he'd worked so hard to plant. 

Dad wanted this baby corn to grow big and strong, so he cultivated the soil to get the weeds out. 

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When I think about one word that I want to focus on for this year, there are many I could have chosen.

I've felt like I have dormant gifts that need to be unearthed. 

I’ve had rocks of doubt and weeds of uncertainty that need to be removed.

This year, I want to... 

cultivate love.

cultivate creativity.

cultivate hope.

 It's time to pull the weeds and flourish right where I'm planted.

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Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12


And the desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passed by.
Ezekiel 36:34


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Do you have one word for 2014? If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

*special thanks to my daughter Kara Landhuis (karalandhuis.com) for transforming my watercolor into a workable digital photo!

Blessings,

Anne