Keeping Faith
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 02/13/25
In just 16 days it is time to plant spinach and peas in my garden. It’s hard to believe that it is nearly the beginning of the 2025 gardening season, especially when I look out at my garden to see a crust of snow over the entire surface - snow that will supposedly be topped with more snow this weekend. This time of year, I find it hard to imagine that we will ever be in anything but winter. And yet, if those seeds are to go into the soil on March 1st, I need to be ready. If I don’t buy the seeds because the snow has discouraged me, I won’t be able to plant them. And if I don’t plant them, then come June I won’t be harvesting peas and spinach. All this to say - the snow on the ground today doesn't determine for me whether or not I will be prepared to plant my garden.
In the letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul encouraged the Galatian church to keep up the journey of faith, no matter what discouraging things were happening around them:
“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at the harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (Galatians 6:9-10).
Friends, in this season of uncertainty and tumult, remember that our calling is to follow in the footsteps of a man who welcomed children, healed outcasts, forgave sinners, shared table fellowship with people who needed transformation, touched the untouchable, and raised the dead to life. He lived in a time of colonization and oppression, and yet did not give up the work to which he was called - and I think it fair to say that his harvest was great.
The snow may be on the ground now, but I am preparing for the next thing my garden needs. As people of faith, let us also not lose heart, but keep doing what is right.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
