I am hoping to make a new devotional for each month this year… that’s a big challenge, but it is something that has been on my heart. For AUGUST, our monthly theme will be GOODNESS. We will be trying to find ways to show a little more GOODNESS through routines and habits.
Last month’s theme was SELF-CONTROL and let me tell you that LIFE sure has a way of putting our lessons to the test but GOD is GOOD and HE has seen us through some difficulties and HE can do the same for you!
Here is the FREE printable, if you’d like to join us:
Pip: Pollywog’s Place Blog is the kind of corner of the internet that asks you to slow down — and then actually makes a case for why that’s worth doing.
Mara: Today’s episode comes from Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog, and it’s rooted in one idea: what a garden teaches about faithfulness, patience, and trusting a process you can’t always see. Let’s start with the garden itself.
Faithfulness in the Garden: Slow Living With GOD
Mara: The post opens with a simple premise — that tending a garden, done slowly and with attention, becomes a spiritual practice. The question it keeps returning to is: what does faithfulness actually look like when nothing visible is happening yet?
Pip: And the anchor for that question comes early in the piece, framed around the quality of faithful work that goes unobserved: “faithfulness can look: Quiet. Unnoticed. Consistent.”
Mara: That’s the spine of the whole reflection. Faithfulness isn’t defined here by results or recognition — it’s defined by showing up anyway. The post draws a direct line between what a gardener does before anything blooms and what a person of faith does before any prayer is visibly answered.
Pip: The gardening metaphor does real work here. Soil preparation, planting, waiting — each stage maps onto something in a faith life, and the waiting stage gets the most attention. There’s a line that captures it plainly: “growth often begins where our eyes cannot see.”
Mara: The post backs that up with Galatians 6:9 — “let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” The “due season” framing recurs throughout. Harvest isn’t withheld; it’s timed.
Pip: There’s also a harder turn in the piece — the weeds section. Worry, fear, bitterness, discouragement. The post names them plainly and says faithfulness sometimes means letting those things be removed, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Mara: That’s where the reflection gets practical rather than just encouraging. It’s not only about patient waiting; it’s about what you allow to compete for space while you wait. The post closes on a direct address to anyone in a season of planting, tending, or waiting — the Gardener, it says, has not left the garden.
Pip: Which is a quiet way of saying the process isn’t abandoned just because it’s invisible — and that’s a harder thing to hold onto than it sounds.
Mara: Exactly the kind of slow-living conviction the whole post is built around.
Pip: Faithfulness as a daily, unspectacular practice — it’s a countercultural idea dressed in garden soil.
Mara: And one worth sitting with. More from Pollywog’s Place next time.
In today’s garden reflection, I’m sharing what the Lord has been teaching me about faithfulness through the simple rhythms of tending a garden.
Gardening reminds us that growth takes time. Seeds are planted long before they’re seen, and harvest comes only after seasons of patient care. In the same way, God calls us to remain faithful in the small things, trusting Him even when we can’t yet see what He’s doing beneath the surface.
Whether you’re in a season of planting, tending, waiting, or harvesting, I pray this post encourages you to trust God’s timing and rest in His unfailing faithfulness.
Here is a quick overview of how we are using the Light of the World Advent Study in our Homeschool this week. We have incorporated different subjects into the devotional, but this is completely optional. You can make this work for you and your family. We pray that this helps you as well… if you enjoy this, please like and share it with someone you know!
Pollywog's Place Blog 