34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” -Matthew 22:34-39
I have had container gardens in two prior years since moving to the suburbs in 2018: a tomato garden and a corn, bean, and squash garden. This year I have been in a different home which had two raised beds already in the backyard, and I have had more space to combine a variety of vegetables. My spring garden this year has been a learning experience. I combined kale, spinach, rosemary, thyme, sage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and two mints, spearmint and peppermint, into one raised bed. By the end of spring, the mints had expanded so much that they were climbing the broccoli plants and causing the broccoli to lean over. The mints were my most prolific plants hands down.
Our church today had a sermon on Matthew 22 with two exhortations: to love Christ with our whole heart and to be joyful. Much more could be said to reproduce the sermon here, but I will focus on my personal application. The image of mint expanding abundantly and boundlessly in my garden was a vivid image of how our love of Christ should crowd out competing thoughts that would steal our joy. While I experience joy in Christ whenever I seek it, I admittedly find that the concerns of the world-dating/marriage, work, community, housework, etc.-often can choke out my joy in Christ instead of vice versa.
My prayer for this week is to seek joy in Christ whenever I am tempted to let circumstances steal my joy and gratitude for His work.