Reader Voices: 'Gardening a spiritual enterprise'

Provident living is to live so spiritually, so intelligently, so faithfully to our Savior that we are prepared to meet any future problem that might arise. That is a tall order, but we have a tall Savior.

One aspect of provident living is to be a husbandman or husbandwoman. The word husband comes from the word hus-house and bonda-freeholder. A freeholder is a person who has been given a stewardship to care for, often for life. To husband something is to care for it wisely, providently, kindly. A husband in a family has the stewardship to nurture, encourage, love and bless his wife and children so that their lives can fully flower and produce good fruit.

Gardening is part both of husbandry and provident living. Just as one must learn how to love and nourish wife and children, one may learn how to nourish and prosper plants, bushes and trees in a garden.

Gardening is a spiritual enterprise. The more faithful one is to Jesus Christ, the better gardener that person will be. They will learn to select good varieties of plants, how to plant them, protect them from cold, heat, darkness, drought, malnutrition, abuse, disease, being trampled, being neglected, being despised, being crowded out by undesirable plants.

Gardening is an exercise in love. It is not as important as raising a family, but it is good practice for raising a family.

A garden thrives on care. An old New England saying is that the best fertilizer for a garden is the farmer's boots. To visit the garden daily and sense what it needs, then to minister to those needs, is the key.

To sense the needs of a garden or a family is a spiritual gift. To minister to those needs as we are led by the Holy Spirit is an act of faith in Christ. We are stewards or freeholders in our mortal journey to prove how faithful or faithless, how careful or careless we desire to be.

The enemy of being a good gardener is selfishness. To minister only when we feel like it, or when it is convenient, or when our pride is threatened, is to be a poor steward. To be a good husbandman is to be constantly scanning our stewardship for needs, then ministering to them, whether it be convenient or pleasant or not. The measure of real love is sacrifice, even as the real measure of a good gardener is doing what needs to be done when and how it needs to be done, not simply doing what is pleasurable or convenient.

Everyone can garden if they have a mind to. If you have a pot or a grow box or a plot of land that gets at least six hours of direct sunshine each day, you too can have the opportunity to plant and nourish seeds or plants. The main requisite is the desire to learn to be a good husbandman. If you have the desire to be a good husband or husbandman, you will learn how to do so if you apply yourself to the task.

To live providently is to provide well for the future. And the only way to provide well for every future possibility is to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

Chauncey C. Riddle lives in Provo, Utah.