Shovels Galore

The best Mother’s Day present I ever received was a garden shovel. It’s the gift that keeps on giving: digging up our perennial flower gardens in the spring and again in the fall has become a ritual.

As I turn over the earth, mostly I relish the exercise, the rich soil and earthworms, and the sun or wind on my face. In the spring, the anticipation of sprouting seedlings and persistent perennials often energizes my digging, and ordinarily in the fall a sense of fruition motivates me as I put the garden to bed for the winter.

But when the hard ground battles my efforts, when the soil seems exhausted and the earthworms are absent, or when the sun is too hot or the wind too blustery, digging is a burden, and, frustrated, I put the shovel away and wait for a more promising day.

Maybe you’re not a gardener and would never consider receiving a shovel as a reason for thanksgiving. Maybe you are unable to wield a shovel because of physical limitations. Or maybe you would much rather read a book. Whatever the case, I believe the Holy Spirit has metaphorical shovels galore with which to bless God’s children.

In Winning the War in Your Mind for Teens, author Craig Groeschel discusses the necessity of confronting lies Satan tells God’s children, not just by trying to change the behavior that results from acting on those lies, but by replacing the lies with God’s truth. He points out that this necessitates creating new neural pathways with the Holy Spirit’s guidance “to help us rewire our brains and renew our minds.” Groeschel employs the metaphors of ruts and trenches to make his point: “A rut is typically formed in mud and becomes a nuisance, even a danger. A rut is unintentionally created, has no purpose, and requires repair. A trench is intentionally dug to deliver a necessary resource. A trench has a specific purpose and fixes an existing problem.”

The morning after I read Groeschel’s words, I woke with a prayer of gratitude: “It’s a great day because the kingdom is yours and I am your child.” Wait a minute! What a switch from the rut-like thoughts that had been plaguing me many nights as I lay awake or first thing in the morning before rising—worries about family, the church, societal problems, and harrowing situations in God’s beautiful but broken world.

Unbeknownst to me, the Holy Spirit was handing me a shovel—a metaphorical one. And so began the digging of a trench. In the nights ahead, or the early morning hours just before I got out of bed, a vague, yet persistent thought lingered: “Today is a great day because … .”

Each time, an imaginary shovelful of soil was flung aside as I asked the Holy Spirit to fill in the blank and provide the words to complete the sentence. A pattern emerged. The reason each day is a great day—notice the verb tense—is because of God and God’s work in the world. The answers I received didn’t focus on my circumstances or those of my family, the church, society, or the world. The focus was and always is on God, first and foremost!

Are you mired in a rut? Is the Holy Spirit handing you a metaphorical shovel with which to dig a trench—one that will become a channel where God’s grace, mercy, and healing will flow? The apostle Paul’s words to the Roman Christians assure us even today that, though we are weak and unable to dig new trenches in our own power, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us with “wordless groans” (Rom. 8:26). Through the Holy Spirit’s intervention, we will experience that “the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).