What Cucumbers Are Teaching Me About God
The clearest lessons I’ve ever learned have come from the garden. Some of the most costly lessons as well.
What is bitter, I will make sweet.
I felt the Lord say this to me in December of last year. It felt like a promise that though doing things the Lord’s way had been tough, it was worth it, in the long run. Flash forward to July of this year, and wow, things really have been bitter. For a long time. I feel like I’ve had so many seasons of barrenness that life and abundance would never give way.
Stressed plants create bitter fruit
Before this summer, I had never grown cucumbers, just zucchini, tomatoes, and other random vegetables. I figured, couldn’t be that different from zucchini right? Wrong! My assumptions are always wrong.
To be fair, I have a green thumb and growing things for me is not that difficult. Most of the things I plant grow. And it’s not that my cucumber plants didn’t grow. It’s that the fruit they produced was really bitter. I had an abundance of bitter fruit.
Apparently, stressed out cucumber plants produce bitter fruit if the growing conditions aren’t optimal. This is normal for most home-grown cucumbers—I just hadn’t done my research. So biting into my first fruit of the season was a surprise indeed! (Read more about the fascinating compound cucurbitacin that makes cucumbers very, very bitter.)
Not enough water, too much sun, poor soil—you name it, makes bitter fruit. It’s a lot like our spiritual fruit, right?
In seasons of drought
I practice “dry farming,” which means I don’t really water extra or use irrigation. I let the sky do it for free. I garden this way mostly because I am cheap but mainly because I am forgetful. It’s why my blueberries die every summer. But vegetables like kale, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers have been quite forgiving. Except the part where my water-starved cucumbers are literally inedible.
(Fun fact, besides pickling the bitter cucumbers, you can slice them in half, rub them together, watch the compound foam up, and somehow, no more bitterness! Nature is cool.)
But on to spiritual things—without Living Water, we can be quite bitter ourselves. Seasons of emotional drought can produce bitter fruit. The more we are stressed, the less pleasant we are to be around. And for me, I’ve been in an incredibly stressful season. I can tell I’m grumpier and sharper than usual. I haven’t spent enough time with God to really saturate myself in His Presence, leading to a bad attitude and some bitter roots in my heart.
Bitter water made sweet
When I found all these bitter cucumbers in my garden, God quickly reminded me of two stories in the Bible: Exodus 15 and Ruth 1.
In Exodus 15, the Israelites are upset with Moses because they had been wandering in the wilderness without water for three days. They call the place where they are “Marah,” which means bitter in Hebrew. (To be fair, I’d also be upset if I had to hike around in the heat without water.) But they had seen God literally do miracles for them days before—still, they feared for their lives. God heard their cries and directed Moses to throw a log into the water. Kind of random, but God really can do anything with nothing. The water becomes sweet and the people can drink. Pretty cool!
Turning to the book of Ruth some 300 years later, Naomi has just lost her sons and husband. Her daughter-in-law Ruth, now a widow also, follows Naomi back to her homeland. When Naomi returns, she tells everyone to call her Mara, referencing the story in Exodus 15, because “God has dealt with [her] bitterly.” Similar to the story of Exodus, God turns the bitter situation around unexpectedly. Without getting into all the historical context and details, essentially, Ruth and Naomi have no way to provide for themselves as women; they need a kinsman-redeemer to marry Ruth so that someone can take care of them, preferably someone in the family. The man who is supposed to marry Ruth passes on the offer, Ruth and Boaz get married, and they have a son. This son, Obed, is named after Ruth’s first husband, which was custom. At the end of the story, Naomi regains her joy at this “restored” son, who ends up being in the line of David—not too shabby.
“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’”
What both of these stories have in common is that God turns around the painful realities of life (death) and restores into something new. God always restores things even better than before.
So no matter where you are on the journey, whether you’re in the middle of a desert staring at a rotten lake, or returning home empty-handed—God can and will turn the situation around for good (Genesis 50:20). You just have to yield to His hand and partner with His Will while you wait. And if it makes you feel better, I’m still waiting for my own situations to turn from bitter to sweet. You’re not alone.
Discover more on our YouTube
I talk more about this in a recent video I made about my cucumber garden. There’s so much more to dive into, so be sure to check it out.
ELISE LAKEY
Elise is a writer, artist, and photographer based out of Nashville, TN. She’s the founder of Garden Theology and seeks to help all gardeners-in-training come to their full purpose in God. When she’s not writing, you can find her playing in the dirt, snuggling her cats, or weaving tapestries.
