Add Water to Activate

Water is an amazing thing.  Everything on this earth depends on the availability of water in specific amounts.  Its makeup is far beyond my understanding.  Read the nutritional label on any container of commercially bottled water and what do you see?  Nothing.  No calories, no vitamins, no protein, no fiber... none of the things that our bodies need to function properly are listed there.  Yet without it, our bodies could not survive.

Juncus 'Spiralis' (Corkscrew Grass) in water garden

It was during a thorough cleaning of my storage building recently that some of these thoughts of water began to "flood" my mind.  But the thoughts weren't so much of water's life-giving properties as they were of the affects that water has on various things - in particular, a bag of fertilizer.



As I moved a couple of large bags of this fertilizer from their shelves in order to clean and re-arrange, it occurred to me that it would soon be time to apply it to my flower beds.  Then the whole fertilization thought process began.  I needed to watch the forecast and wait for a week that would be rain-free.  That would allow me to remove the leaves from the beds, clean up any old debris and broadcast the tiny granules of fertilizer evenly across all of the surface of my garden.  Then I would have to apply the water.

Bloom of Liriope muscari (Monkey Grass)

If I applied the granulated fertilizer just prior to a heavy rain, the force of the water would likely wash all of the fertilizer away.  I needed to control the amount of water applied to the fertilizer.  If I failed to water in all of the areas where I had applied the fertilizer, it would simply sit there and do nothing.  It needed water in order to work.  Otherwise, it would "fertilize" its way through the very packaging that contained it.  It had to have water to activate it.





Perhaps you're familiar with slow-release fertilizer.  It's most often found in granular form, and each little granule of fertilizer is encapsulated with a material that dissolves very slowly over time, allowing the active ingredients of the fertilizer to be released gradually from the granule's protective capsule-covering.  Contained inside of that capsule is enough fertilizer to feed and nourish my plants for an entire growing season.  Everything my plants need in order to grow and thrive is bound up in those granules.  But without the application of water to begin to soften that protective covering, the fertilizer will never be able to move into the soil and be taken in by the roots of the plants.

Ipomoea 'Blackie' (Purple Sweet Potato Vine)

Back to the storage building.  I'm standing in my partially-cleaned storage building, covered from head to toe with dust, dirt and debris, holding a twenty-pound bag of fertilizer, when God reveals to me the most amazing thing about "activation" and the message that our pastor shared with us during Sunday morning worship services.


Before I get to that message, let me once again mention why I write this blog.  Oh sure, I enjoy the plant photography, but that's not the real reason for the blog.  I write these entries in order to record the things God reveals to me as I work in my garden.  Since God created me, He knows everything about me and my personality.  He knows what I enjoy, which is gardening.  He knows that He can most effectively communicate with me and help me understand many of His truths and His desires for my life through comparisons and analogies of the plants and the garden.  He uses that to enable my little brain to comprehend what He wants to reveal to me... and He's done it once again.




Gardenia jasminoides 'August Beauty'

Now, getting back to the pastor's message.  It was a message from I Thessalonians, chapter five, regarding how we Christians often "quench the Holy Spirit" in our lives when we don't do the things God intends for us to do.  I had heard this message before from a previous pastor.  It must have spoken to me then, too, because the margin of my Bible on that page is filled with notes.  It was right next to verse 19, which says, "Do not put out the Spirit's fire;"  The note that I had written that caught my attention read, "If I hide my light, I am quenching the Holy Spirit."  Yes, I wrote it.  Yes, I believed it, because I believe that everything contained in the Bible is the perfect, 100% true, Word of God.  But, I couldn't really understand it.


Here's where I got stuck.  I just couldn't grasp the concept of how I, with all my human limitations, could stop the work of something as great and as powerful as The Holy Spirit - part of the Trinity.  It's not that I feel as if I have to understand every single thing in the Bible.  I realize that some things simply aren't meant for me to understand in this life here on earth.  I just couldn't wrap my brain around how it was possible for me to "quench the Holy Spirit."  Then I spilled the fertilizer.

Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster'
(Feather Reed Grass)

The bag I was holding had been opened, and as I moved to place it on the floor, the fertilizer began to pour out of the opening.  As quickly as I could, I swept up the granules and placed them back in the bag, thankful that the floor on which they spilled was dry.  If it had been wet, the fertilizer would have been activated and I couldn't have put it back in the bag with the rest.  I didn't want to allow it to work yet.  I didn't want to allow it to work.  I wanted to quench it's power by holding it in check.





 Nothing I could do could change the makeup of that fertilizer.  It was what it was.  I'm certainly not smart enough to figure out what all it contained, or how to put all those chemicals together in the right formula to create the power that would work properly for my plants.  Someone with much more intelligence and plant knowledge had already done that for me.  But I did have the power to allow it to work, or to prevent it from working.  It was all in whether or not I wanted to activate it.  That's how I had quenched the power of the Holy Spirit in my life... I had chosen not to activate It.

I've often heard of Jesus described as a "gentleman" who will not force His way into anyone's lives.  In Revelation 3:20 He says, "Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (NIV)  He doesn't knock down the door and barge in to anyone's life.  He knocks, and He waits.  And if anyone opens the door, then He comes in.  Perhaps it's the same with The Holy Spirit.  Maybe He won't force us to do God's will.  But He is there within us, ready to empower us to do God's will the minute we allow Him to do so.


So, how do I "activate" The Holy Spirit in my life?  God has shown me that it's very simple... through an act of obedience.

Zephyranthes canadensis (Rain Lily)

I was asked recently to speak to a group of women from several different denominations at a popular annual event.  I had never spoken to a large group in a setting such as that one - at least not concerning spiritual matters - and my immediate inclination was to decline as politely as possible.  But I agreed to give the matter prayerful consideration.  I asked God to show me what He wanted me to do.  I felt like I was being fair in asking Him to show me what He wanted me to talk about if He wanted me to agree to speak.  I didn't expect the answer I got.  I very clearly discerned God's voice telling me that He would tell me what He wanted me to speak about after I agreed to speak.  He wanted an act of obedience first.  He wanted me to step out in faith and trust Him to supply me with what I would need.

Baptisia 'Screaming Yellow' (False Baptisia)

I did step out, and I did agree to speak, and God did provide.  He provided me with much more than I had asked for...  like His Word tells us in Ephesians 3:20, "By His mighty work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." (NLT)  He gave me a topic I was both familiar with and comfortable with,  Plus, it was already written down.  It was my blog entries.

The only times I had spoken to larger groups in the past, I had spoken to groups about plants or landscaping.  It was what I was familiar with, and what I felt more comfortable with.  Anytime I had spoken to a group concerning spiritual matters, it had been a relatively small group.  The topic had already been determined and the outline done in the form of a lesson plan or Bible study.  This was going to be new territory for me.  But God didn't want me to reinvent the wheel... He simply wanted me to put it in motion.

Dianthus chinensis (Cheddar Pinks)

God continued to provide on the night of the event.  Despite the fact that this was new territory for me, there were no nerves.  There was no stumbling or fumbling for words.  There was no hesitation, no fear... nothing but  a feeling of being relaxed and at ease... a feeling of being led... a feeling of being filled.  My simple act of obedience in agreeing to speak and trusting God to provide had unleashed something in me that I had never quite experienced before, and it was nothing short of amazing.


"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him.  Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."  Romans 15:13 (NLT)