TAKE CARE OF YOUR CORNFIELD

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Peace be unto you and your families. Today, we are at a crucial time in human history. A time that requires our most dedicated efforts toward unity. There are huge challenges that we have to surmount to get any future at all for all of us. To help us understand this truth, let us learn a lesson from the corn.

July is normally a month of dryness and a little rainfall in Bermuda. Normally at this time of the year, the old timers used to say, "To preserve water, you have to stretch it." This statement applies to the home, as well as the garden. 

Here are some personal tips from my own experience that have given me success in growing corn during the summer.

1. Watering the corn once a day is very important. Some people water their corn any time of the day. But I find, watering corn in the evening or about 6:30 pm allows the ground to maintain moisture through the night.

2. Fertilizing the cornfield is also very important. I would use chicken manure every two weeks after the plants are three inches tall. But if your ground is already manured, you don't need to add extra natural fertilizer.

Like the corn in the garden during the summer months, our lives need to be watered daily by the word of God. In light of the many things happening throughout our communities these days that can bring hardship and pain. Always remember, these things are like the unbearable summer heat that can be cooled down by the water of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

When a neighborhood is suffering a crisis, it is likened to a cornfield that is going through a drought. Take time to give them the water of sympathy and empathy! Today, I encourage you to take care of your own gardens. In other words, take care of yourselves and your neighbors.

Seek ways that can reduce the dryness of tension, anger, hatred, violence, murder, sickness, and deep depression. Seek for ways in which you can bring communities together, instead of pulling them apart. Find ways in which you can help the seniors and children within your neighborhood garden feel safe and happy.

Ultimately, I point you to God who is our help in all crisis! Let none now venture to tamper with sin, the source of every misery that has come upon our world. No longer remain in a state of lethargy and stupid indifference. Let not the destiny of your soul hang upon an uncertainty. Know for yourselves that you are fully on the Lord’s side, and do all you can positively to help your families and your communities succeed successfully.

"We are still amidst the shadows and turmoil of earthly activities. Let us consider most earnestly the blessed hereafter. Let our faith pierce through every cloud of darkness and behold Him who died for the sins of the world. He has opened the gates of paradise to all who receive and believe on Him. To them, He gives power to become the sons and daughters of God. Let the afflictions that pain us so grievously become instructive lessons, teaching us to press forward toward the mark of the prize of our high calling in Christ. Let us be encouraged by the thought that the Lord is soon to come. Let this hope gladden our hearts. “Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Hebrews 10:37. Blessed are those servants who, when their Lord comes, shall be found watching." Luke 12:37.

Lastly, we are all impacted by the violence, and conflicts within our communities. “Every single time you help somebody stand up, you are helping humanity rise.” Steve Maraboli. So let us forsake the dryness of criticizing and finding fault with one another. Let us stop speaking death and not life to one another. Let us stop tearing down one another's character, and start building up one another. Let us cast off the spirit of envy, jealousy, and self-promotion, and start supporting one another. Let us strengthen and build up one another so that God may be glorified in and through all of us. Let us humble ourselves before God and resort to prayer, for you cannot and must not attempt to work at variance. 

It will not be long till we shall see Him in whom our hopes of eternal life are centered. And in His presence, all the trials and sufferings of this life will be as nothingness. . . Look up, look up, and let your faith continually increase. Let this faith guide you along the narrow path that leads through the gates of the city of God into the great beyond, the wide, unbounded future of glory that is for the redeemed. “Be patient, therefore, brethren, . . . for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5:7, 8.

As you go through your day, may God who is our help in ages past, and our hope for years to come, be a shelter for us from the stormy blast, and grant us with Him an eternal Home.

By GARDEN MINISTRY