Stay in your bad soil

When we are in seasons of desolateness, of dryness, and weltering, is our first reaction to uproot ourselves and move to another place that is seems better? Yes. Naturally so, and this is not a bad thing, its inherently grained into us to be in a place, socially, spiritually, economically, and physically, that we can flourish. However, what if we instead of seeking out a place with better soil for our growth, we sought to change the composition of the soil.

In Luke 13:6-9 Jesus talks about a parable similar to this:

The story is about a man who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking to see it bear fruit for THREE YEARS and found none. For three years this man had a fig tree in his garden that was useless. His natural reaction? to tell the vine-dresser to cut it down because it was "wasting space" and "useless." The vine-dresser, being skilled in his craft had another solution. In stead of laboring over uprooting the fig tree, and act that could likely kill it if in a fragile state, he dug around it. The vine dresser saw that the problem was not with the fig tree, or even the bad soil, but the lack of nourishment in the soil. The vine-dressers expertise tell him that digging around it and placing manure into the trench of the plant would nourish the plant and produce a fruit.

Our own lives are so similar. To flourish we do not always need to be uprooted and run to something that is seemingly better. What if in order to produce fruit, we need to change the composition of the soil that we are seeking to be nourished from. Our lives, planted wherever they might be, need the soil around it to be nourished rather than just the plant. rather than just us.

While digging around the problem and placing manure around it may seem pointless, and inefficient, rather than being uprooted and replanted, it is the "shit" that  produces valued, anticipated fruit, that someone has been longing for for years. It is the manure, that when placed in the right place nourishes not just the plant but the very soil that its placed into. Sometime I get upset and my position in life, that I am not yielding fruit in a certain area of my life and its been longer than three year. What if I stopped trying to run, and uproot myself from the soil I think is holding me back, but ask my vine dresser to use the crap in my life to nourish the soil I am place in. To nourish the soil so that I, and all those who are planted around my might yield fruit.