Fertilizer...in your spiritual life????

Fertilizer- Any of a large number of natural and synthetic materials, including manure and compounds containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, spread on or worked into soil to increase its capacity to support plant growth

Synonyms: manure, plant food, compost, dung 

                                                                                     - TheFreeDictionary.com

A friend gave some very wise insight on fertilizer the other day - yes, fertilizer. The synonyms listed above for fertilizer are not "pretty" are they? Manure, dung, compost. Actually, they are downright smelly. No one would relish the thought of putting their hands in dung let alone being covered in it!

Yet, as smelly and unclean as these things are, fertilizer is often necessary for the healthy growth of the plant. Fertilizer can make the plant grow bigger, stronger, healthier and more robust than without it. Moreover, fertilizer can even make the plant grow more quickly then without it. Can you guess where we are going with this friends?

We often run away from the odorous situations and uncomfortable challenges that present themselves in our Christian walk - not even wanting to touch them, but it is often NECESSARY for our growth in the LORD! 

Though the Shulamite spoke of a different situation, I think her words can be applied to our own attitude about fertilizer in our lives: "I have washed my feet, How can I dirty them again??" (Song of Solomon 5:3c NASB)

Do not run from the fertilizer that the Lord puts in and around your life. Know that in GOD’S time, your seed will begin to break ground and sprout leaves, and then will grow into the plant, then fill out, and, at last will become a robust tree!  You will endure God's trimming and pruning- the cutting away of stray branches that grow out of place, but everything happens in the Lord's own time and season.  

Don't be discouraged and keep pressing on toward the goal!

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV)

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:1-4 NASB)