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Over the past five years, my husband and I have taken up square-foot gardening in our backyard. Given that we live in a high desert, this isn’t the most cost-effective way to sup-ply fresh veggies for our family; however, the fruit this discipline has produced in our souls is more than worth the added resources we’ve poured into these beds.

It takes a lot to help a vegetable garden flourish in a place with little water and bad soil. And it’s important to note here that I say “help” instead of “make” or “cause” because, just like helping a soul to flourish, all the work we have done can come to nothing if there’s a heat wave or an early hard frost. I can’t make the sun shine or the rain fall. I can’t make seeds sprout and I can’t protect from every possible disease or marauding critter.

Yet, as Dallas Willard was well-known for saying, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning.” Over these years, I’ve learned some important lessons about the effort it takes to help a garden flourish I believe are also applicable to the flourishing of souls:

Start with Good Soil: In Colorado, our base soil is full of sand and clay. When we began our garden, we brought in loads and loads of loamy earth to give our seeds the best chance possible. I feel the same way about my soul—most of the time it’s either loose and insubstantial or packed so hard it’s difficult to turn. Regularly starting with time with God—in the Word, in prayer, in other spiritual disciplines—helps the seeds of life have a place within me that can nurture the seeds God wants to plant.

Don’t Go It Alone: Although we have access to that Answerer of All Questions (Google), some of best gardening success came after we started inviting other people with more experience to help us with our particular garden. Just like our location had specific parameters, so do our particular souls. Finding community, mentorship, spiritual direction, and resources that speak specifically to the needs of our unique soul-scapes during our unique seasons of life can move a garden or a soul from merely existing to abundantly flourishing.

Pruning Isn’t Cruel, It’s Necessary: This has been one of my hardest lessons to learn, and it’s only this year I’ve really started to apply it. Pulling out small, healthy plants or chopping off branches felt like I was being deliberately mean; however, when I did start to cut out the “good,” what was produced in my garden was better than it ever had been before. It produced the “best.” As my husband and I prepare to welcome our first child, we’re looking at pruning a lot of the “good” things out of our lives in order to make room for the “best” of this little girl arriving among us. It’s hard to say “no,” but we know we don’t want our daughter born into a family perpetually busy and overcommitted. Instead, we want to show her parents who trust in God’s best by letting go and cutting out all that isn’t vital to life and transformation.

Trust the Master Gardener: Over and through all of these lessons, the biggest one I’ve learned over these five years is to trust the Master Gardener. Ultimately, the flourishing of either my garden or my soul is not up to me. On my own, neither my garden nor I can produce fruit (John 15:5). This takes the burden off my shoulders and allows me to put the effort in without having the results reflect on my inherent value as a child of God. There is true freedom in trusting that the One who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). Even when things seem to be working against the very flourishing I desire, as they were this year when heavy hail decimated two-thirds of our crop, I am able to trust that the One who loves me is working something together for good (Romans 8:28). Just as I desire my garden to flourish and produce, so does God desire flourishing for me.