The Empty Ground Looks Like Failure

You go out and you see failure.

Not in a dramatic way. There is no crisis out there. The beds are empty and reasonably tidy and there is nothing wrong with any of it, and every time you look you get the same small drop.

And what is producing the drop is this: bare soil looks exactly like neglected soil.

They are visually identical. Ground that is resting properly, in the right season, exactly as it should be, presents to the eye as ground that somebody has stopped looking after.

You are not looking at neglect, and ground that is resting has never once looked any different from ground that has been abandoned.

And your eye has been reading the second one every day since November.

Now, I want to be careful here, because you are not a foolish woman and you know perfectly well that it is February and that nothing grows in February.

You know it. That is not the level this is operating on.

The knowing does not reach the reading. You can be entirely clear that the ground is meant to be empty and still get the drop, because the drop happens at the level of looking rather than at the level of knowing, and one does not correct the other.

The rain cometh down, and the snow

There is a line in Isaiah about weather that is doing more than people usually notice, and the detail is in what it describes as happening.

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. (Isaiah 55:10, King James Version)

Watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud.

Now, notice the sequence and when it happens. The rain and the snow come down in the season when nothing is showing. That is when rain and snow arrive. And the verse says that is when the earth is being watered and made to bring forth.

The making happens before the bringing forth. In the empty part.

You are looking at the stretch the verse says the work is happening in, and bare ground has never once been ground where nothing was going on. Isaiah 55:10 puts the watering and the making in the season before anything shows, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman getting a small drop at her own beds.

And notice that the verse takes the weather seriously as an actor.

The rain does something. It is not decoration on a dormant season. It waters, it makes bring forth, it eventually gives seed to the sower. The whole causal chain in that sentence starts in the weather of the empty months.

You are standing in front of ground that is currently being acted on, and a season of rain and snow has never once been a season in which nothing was being done. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in the part with nothing visible, and the written word puts the causal chain in the weather rather than in the growing.

And there is the phrase returneth not thither, which is worth having. The rain does not go back up unspent.

Nothing about that season is wasted or withdrawn. What comes down stays down and works.

You are not watching a season that gets taken back, and what falls on that ground has never once returned unspent. The Spirit of God is the one who sends what does not come back empty, and the word says returneth not thither about the rain before it says anything about bread.

Your eye needs correcting, not your garden

Let me be practical, because the problem is precisely located and that is useful.

There is nothing to do to the garden. It is correct. The beds are as they should be and any work you did out there in February would be work for the sake of appearances.

The thing that needs addressing is the reading, and the reading happens in about half a second, before any thought arrives.

You are dealing with something faster than thinking, and a reading that happens in half a second has never once been corrected by knowing better. The Holy Spirit is the one who reaches what argument does not, and Isaiah 55:10 describes the hidden work rather than arguing anybody out of what they see.

And here is why saying it out loud is the assignment, rather than reminding yourself.

Reminding yourself is silent and it happens in the same place as the reading, which means it is one internal process arguing with another, and the faster one wins every time.

Saying it out loud puts it somewhere else. It comes in through the ear, in your own voice, in the actual place, which is a different route entirely and does not have to beat the reading at its own speed.

You are able to take a true thing in by a different route, and a sentence heard in your own voice has never once had to outrun anything. The Spirit of God is the one who works through an ordinary spoken word, and the written word describes rain doing its work by simply arriving rather than by argument.

Say it out loud at the beds

So here is the assignment.

Walk out to the beds and say out loud that this is rest, not neglect.

Those words or near enough. This is rest. This is not neglect. Say it standing where you can see the ground.

You are able to name what is actually in front of you, and one sentence said at the edge of a bed has never once been too small a thing to correct a reading with. Isaiah 55:10 puts the work in the empty season, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a woman says six words to her own garden.

And do it more than once. This is one of the few on this site where I would ask for a repetition.

Not because saying it once is insufficient, but because the reading happens every time you look, and a correction that happens once against a thing that happens daily is outnumbered.

Say it whenever you go out, for as long as it takes, which may be until March.

You are able to answer a daily thing daily, and a correction repeated has never once been a correction that failed the first time. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present each time it gets said, and the word describes rain that comes down through a whole season rather than in one afternoon.

And do nothing to the garden. That is the other half. The ground is right and it does not need you.