#22: A lesson in lawncare

I was talking to someone the other day about feeling the spirit. We were lamenting the fact that when you first start out learning about the gospel, the spirit comes strong and deep and it feels great! Then after you've got your roots down, it's like it lessens and the times when you feel deep, spiritual impressions happen less frequently. When that happens (because it will happen to every follower of Christ at some point) it's easy to get discouraged and think that something's wrong. But that's not the case!

I had a realization that day that growing spiritually is sort of like starting a lawn from seed. After you prep the lawn and lay down the grass seed you water the lawn fairly heavily for a long period of time. You give the grass lots of water while it's still sprouting and coming in.

Now I'm not an expert in lawncare, but I've talked to plenty of people with really green lawns and they all say the same thing. Once the grass has come in and the root system is established, you change your watering pattern. To get a beautiful, healthy lawn you water deeply and infrequently. Now I'm not talking about starving the poor lawn but you don't water the grass every day. Maybe a couple times a week. That way the roots have to extend to find water. And when they extend, they get a firmer hold on the soil and the grass is able to withstand a lot more wear.

So we can see a pattern here. Once our little sprouts of faith and testimony come in, we're not going to get the same amount of spiritual water every minute of every day. We don't need to panic if we see our spiritual experiences coming a little less often. The Gardener knows what He's doing and He's not going to let our testimonies dry up. He's just letting our roots search a little deeper so that we become stronger and more beautiful.

Just soak up the water when you get it and dig a little deeper!