Lettuce and Christianity

lettuce 2016

It’s that time of year again; when gardens have been planted and we start reaping some small fruits of our labor. Lettuce, onions, and even a tomato or two! For me personally, its also a time to reflect back on gardens past. Memories that time only makes sweeter; like that unfortunate day when some friends and I got into a rotten-tomato fight (not our best choice of weapons), the time our oldest daughter thought we were making too big a deal wrestling the tiller (until it took her for a sideways jaunt across the garden), and even the loss of my high school class ring (it was eventually found); and finally…looking the lettuce.  

My mom used that phrase and I just knew what she meant. Lettuce: you plant it, watch it grow, when it's ready to eat, you pinch it from the stalk, wash and dry it, and then examine it...simple goodness. Unless you miss that last step and find a snail or ant in your salad. No joke, that's on the other side of gross! Looking the lettuce is a boring job, a thankless one, one that as a young girl I thought was just...well stupid. Until I found  something lurking in my BLT.  Yeah... 

Earlier this week, I was fixing supper and looking the lettuce when I found an ant that had managed to survive the pinching, shaking, washing, and drying. But not my leaf-by-leaf examination. I got rid of the unwelcomed critter, rewashed the leaf and confidently added it to the salad, resuming the tedious but necessary final step of preparing lettuce for consumption. Before supper, I had shared a bag of pinched, washed, and dried lettuce with our neighbors, with a final word:  "Make sure you look at it!" And while taking the well worn path between our homes, I realized how much looking the lettuce has in common with spiritual growth - and of course, I wanted to share my revelation with y'all.

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I imagine that our spiritual life is a lot like looking the lettuce. Sometimes it is easy to scratch the surface by going to church once or twice a week, a quick read of scripture as an obligation rather than true desire, and then we go on with our day. And halfway through, we start to feel weighted down, like there is something that doesn't really belong in our Christian life, something unseen, lurking underneath the surface...kind of like a snail or ant hiding on the underside of the lettuce leaf. It's been there all the time, we just didn't see it. But then, when least expected, supposedly from out of nowhere, that little thing we knew could potentially pop up, that thing we hoped, sort of prayed, wouldn't show up, makes an unwelcomed appearance. And just like that our Christian character is at stake...so, I reckon if our examining our Christian walk could be paralleled to cleaning a leaf of lettuce, here's how we'd do it:

1) Plant it (Psalm 119:11)

(earnestly pray and seek God first in every area of our lives)

2) Reap it (Psalm 126:6)

(become friends with Jesus by reading God's Word - on purpose, with passion, with desire – He’s pretty awesome by the way!)

3) Wash it (Psalm 51:7)

(schedule time with God seriously put Him on our calendar, asking Him to reveal any hidden sin)

4) Dry it (Matthew 11:30)

(remove excess stuff weighing us down, keeping us heavy-hearted)

5) Look it (1 Corinthians 2:10-11)

(ask to see ourselves through the eyes of Christ - serving Him boldly without shame) 

6) Share it (Matthew 28:19 & John 9:4)

(do something nice for someone else - get ourselves off our minds for a while – share Jesus with everyone we meet)

So there ya have it folks, six steps toward cleaning up our spiritual lives so that nothing hidden pops up when we least expect it! Living the Christian life is not nearly as hard as we make it...sometimes ya just gotta "look it."

Have a blessed Sunday y’all,

In Christ with love and compassion,

Coach Kelly