Playing in the Dirt: Devotions for Crazy Plant LadiesSample

In the Dirt

My life is down in the dust; give me life through Your word.

PSALM 119:25 CSB

We plant ladies get our hands messy. We trade polished manicures for muddy fingernails and palms. What others see as “getting dirty” doesn’t bother us. We’re unafraid to get in the dirt because we love working with our plants.

We’re not always so willing to get our hands dirty outside our greenhouses and sunrooms. Certain things are off-limits; there are memories we won’t touch, literal and figurative places we won’t go for fear of “getting dirty.”

Because He is gracious to us, Jesus gets with us in the dirt of our lives without hesitation. He is with us when we make messes of ourselves, and He’s not afraid to get His hands dirty by lifting us out of our muck and dusting us off.

In the Bible, Jesus literally got down in the dust for a woman caught in the act of adultery. The Pharisees (strict religious leaders) brought the woman to Jesus, hoping He would condemn her to death by stoning. Instead of responding to their accusations, Jesus said nothing. He stooped down and began to write in the dust. The Pharisees kept pestering Jesus. He responded with these words: “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7 NASB). Then He bent down and wrote in the dirt again.

After a while, when Jesus looked up, everyone was gone except the adulterous woman. He asked where the crowd had gone. Did no one condemn her? Not one person had. Jesus told her He did not condemn her, either, and to go and sin no more.

There’s a lot to this story, but did you catch how Jesus lowered Himself to the dust repeatedly in the presence of the sinful woman? The Bible doesn’t say what Jesus was writing, but perhaps we can make an inference based on the symbolism of Jesus’ gesture. Maybe He wrote the

word, “Forgiven.”

Jesus, You are with me in the dirt of my life, and You pull me up from my messes. What wondrous love You have for me! Thank You for Your love and forgiveness. Let me not be afraid to get my hands dirty for others because You have helped and loved me.