Tending what's already growing

There is a particular kind of tiredness that arrives in mid-July. The garden has been planted. The school year's promises have been made and partly kept. The Bible reading plan has been begun and partly followed. Nothing is finished. Nothing is failed. Everything is just halfway, and halfway is a hard place to stand for very long.

Scripture has a word for this exact moment, and it does not ask us to start over. It asks us not to grow weary.

Three things midsummer asks of us

• Water what is already planted. Most of what God is doing in your life this season was decided in the spring. Midsummer is for tending it, not replacing it.
• Pull one weed before it goes to seed. There is almost always one habit, one resentment, one small compromise that is quietly stealing nutrients from the good things. Name it. Pull it.
• Wait without panicking. Harvest has a calendar, and it is not yours. The proper time is a real time. It will come.

"Midsummer is for tending what is already planted, not replacing it."

What quiet faithfulness looks like in July

Quiet faithfulness rarely looks like a breakthrough. It looks like the same chair, the same Bible, the same prayer for the same person — for the eighth Tuesday in a row. It looks like the marriage you are still tending when the romance feels far away. The child you are still praying for when the answer is slow. The vocation you are still showing up to when the applause has gone quiet.

The harvest is not earned by spectacle. It is given to the ones who did not give up. The companion worksheet for this essay is a small page with two short tables — what is quietly growing, and what still needs weeding. Take ten minutes with it this weekend. You will find more fruit than you thought, and the weeds will be smaller than they looked at dawn.

Stay with what you started. The proper time is coming.