Berakiah Community

I thought that I would take this opportunity to share with you all. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1 I've just finished reading an interesting article from the "Seed of Truth" A Mennonite publication The title of the article Establishing Habits it was an article about the importance of cultivating good habits from an early age, That it was not good enough to do something occasionally but that we should do something again and again through repetition until it becomes a habit, something that is done unconsciously like eating, walking and driving. I reflected that one aspect within our own family when you were growing up was that when we did not go to church for some reason, it felt like something was missing from our lives. The article went on to say that old habits forgotten should be engraved deeper through refreshing and that if we did not do that, bad habits would take their place, last of all it said that habits needed to be established as early as possible in one's life as it was easier the younger we are. Can I encourage you today to examine the habits in your lives at the moment and wether they are beneficial to your walk with our Lord, and ones you want established in the lives of your children.

I've been weighting up the pros and cons of Seedlings verses Seeds, I've had some success and some failures, Broad beans, swedes and horseradish success while tomatoes, sage and cucumbers failure. What do you prefer? What brands of seeds do you use?

It always pays to do research before you do anything in the garden. This morning I went to do some weeding and saw that the Elephant Garlic that we planted in February was flowering I in my noviceness thought that it was ready to harvest. So I carefully lifted it out and rinsed the soil off, only to find three very small bulbs, so I again carefully put it back and covered the roots with soil again. Then I went back inside and looked up Elephant Garlic on the internet and found that it takes two years to harvest, and when it flowers you are to cut off or bend the flower over to encourage bulb growth. Are there any other things I need to know about the onion, garlic, or leek families when they are ready to harvest?

When you spend so much in the garden the Lord brings to mind scriptures that relate to what you are doing. the Lord and the Apostles always used parrables that involved every day things. Matthew 13:23 23But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Galatians 5:22 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, To bear fruit for the Lord the ground must be prepared beforehand the same as we do for the garden,time spent in prayer and the word are ways that the lord uses to change our lives, we can't expect to bear fruit spontaneously.

With all the rain we have had lately we have had a mountain of weeds to pull out. We have now got on top of the winter weeds but now have to contend with the emerging summer ones. Why do we have weeds? Because of the fall!

Genesis 3:16-18
17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

While pulling the weeds out I've been considering life.Weeds can be compared with sin in our lives. If we deal with sin early it is a lot easier than having to battle with sins that are entrenched in our lives but as it is in our garden when you are confronted with the overwelming mountain of weeds we don't think we can get them out by oursleves but with help we can do it, God has given us the Holy Spirit to be our aid because we cannot do it in our strength. Thank God He does not leave us alone.