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The weather has been kind of crummy this past week – cloudy, drizzly much of the time, thunderstorms & then downpours. I haven’t been out to garden or look at my garden much at all. Last night in walking my children out to their car to go home, I took the time to go check out my garden. Looking from my window, it did not appear that anything was growing at all. From my window, it was a disappointing sight. 

Until I got a little closer…..

In going into my garden, I discovered that there were flowers on several plants. The tomato, pepper, zucchini & cucumber plants all had buds. Several of the tomato plants even had VERY small tomatoes growing. Small but they were there!!! The hope of a harvest was beginning to bloom inside of me as well. The beauty of this, was that due to the weather, I had really not done much of anything but plant & be diligent to water when the garden required. Those plants grew in their own way, in their own time. In gardening, I must be diligent to do my part & the rest, well….much is up to The Gardener, who causes all things to grow. 

Life is like my garden at times. We can hope & dream about something & at times, it seems like nothing is happening or maybe worse, not ever going to happen. This is one of the hardest of places to find oneself. Thankfully Scripture has something to say about this hard spot:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  (Galatians 6:9). 

Let’s look at an interesting word, “weary”. It means:

  • to give in to trouble
  • to become exasperated by difficulty
  • be defeated in spirit, discouraged, or faint-hearted
  • to despair
  • to lose heart

(from the New Testament Lexical Aids)

Another source defines it as “to give up all hope of accomplishing one’s goal”. (Expository Dictionary of Bible Words). 

Who of us has never felt exasperated, defeated, discouraged, or hopeless? This verse is for us. 

Let’s face it – life is not easy. But we must not give up. Basically this verse in Galatians is giving us a very simple command, “Don’t quit!”. The only way we do not achieve our goal or see our garden grow is if we quit. In that verse is the key to all this – “the proper time”. 

“The word for “proper time” is kairos….used to describe the opportune moment, the fullness of time, in which God sent His Son into the world.” (New American Commentary, Galatians). That proper time is not something we can rationalize or plan. That proper time is controlled by the Sovereign God. That proper time could be rendered, in God’s own good time. 

May we hold on to God’s time knowing that His time is the perfect time! 

“Things don’t just happen to us who love God,

They’re planned by His own dear hand,

Then molded & shaped, & timed by His clock,

Things don’t just happen – they’re planned.”

 (as written by Esther Fields)