Tending The Garden: What the Summer Heat Teaches Us About Faith

In the middle of a life that demands every ounce of our energy, we often look for refuge in the heat of a busy season. We understand that if we do not tend to our own soul first and pull the weeds of daily overwhelm, we will have nothing left to pour into the hearts of those around us. We need a place to shut the door, seek the face of God, and find our strength in prayer, recognizing that before we can cultivate a flourishing landscape in our families, we have to be walking with the Master Gardener Himself.

As we find ourselves in the height of July and August, the temptation to succumb to the rhythm of the season is great. We fill our calendars with camps, trips, and late nights, often letting structure slip away entirely. But what do these peak summer months actually mean for a gardener?

July and August are rarely glamorous. They are not about the fresh, hopeful planting of spring. Instead, mid-summer is a season of sweat, heavy lifting, and relentless maintenance. It is about deep watering so roots do not scorch, pulling stubborn weeds that rob the soil of nutrients, and deadheading spent blooms. It is the quiet, behind-the-scenes endurance that keeps a garden alive when the sun is beating down hardest.

In many ways, these hot summer months reflect our daily faith walk. We want the explosive, visible fruit of the harvest, but God often calls us to the unglamorous consistency of the daily tending. It is the quiet prayer whispered in the kitchen, the simple act of opening the Word before the house wakes up, and the patient repetition of pointing our children toward Christ when we feel entirely depleted. We are setting up futures we cannot yet see, trusting that faithful stewardship in the dry heat is planting seeds that will last a lifetime.

There is a striking picture of this hidden, earthy kind of faith in the Gospels. On the morning of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene stood outside the empty tomb weeping. Scripture tells us she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize it was Him.

“Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'” (John 20:15)

It is fascinating that in the most monumental, earth-shattering moment in human history—the resurrection of the Son of God, Mary’s eyes mistook Jesus for a gardener. Yet, there is profound theological poetry in that mistake.

Jesus is the ultimate Gardener. He is the one who tends to the soil of our weary hearts. He meets us not always in flashing lights or grand spectacles, but in the dirt, the quiet, and the ordinary routines of life. He tends to the broken places, pulls out our weeds of anxiety, and patiently waters what feels dead and dry within us.

When we feel lost in the heat of summer, or when our daily routines feel mundane and unnoticed, remember Mary in the garden. Jesus reveals Himself right there in the dirt. He is walking beside us through the heavy maintenance of our daily lives, calling us by name just as He called Mary.

Do not let this summer pass by as nothing more than a series of frantic activities. Stewardship of your children's hearts and your own soul is the highest calling you will ever have. Create the systems, build the rhythms, and embrace the unglamorous consistency of tending your plot. Take the time to show them that no matter how busy or scorching the world becomes, there is always a secret place where we can go to find peace. When we do that, we are not just surviving the summer; we are tending a garden with the Master, yielding a legacy that will echo into eternity.

(If you are looking for more encouragement on how to hold onto hope when the season feels long, be sure to listen to the latest broadcast message, When the Waiting Comes, where we dive deeper into finding grace in the quiet places.)

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