“God blesses the soil which drinks in the rain that often falls on it and which grows plants that are useful to those for whom it is cultivated.”  Hebrews 6:7 GNT

I had the gift of growing up in a garden. As a toddler, I had the gift of learning to pick vegetables, plant seeds, and pull weeds when I wasn’t making mudpies or playing with bugs, worms, rocks or whatever I could find or dig up. Most of the time as a toddler, and as a teenager, too, I was covered in the juice of whatever I’d discovered to be sweet and ready to eat from the garden. To this day, nothing tastes quite as good as fresh-picked peaches, watermelon, carrots, snow-peas, butter lettuce, or apples devoured quite literally in the field. (Except for my mother’s fried okra, corn on the cob, squash, and other just-picked delicacies served alongside homemade cornbread and a big glass of fresh cold milk.)

But before we get too hungry, let’s go back to the garden where I first learned some of the many ways faith and science work together in a most beautiful synergy. Or should I say gardens? Because there was the garden at home, the garden at the farm, and the research garden plots and greenhouses at my Daddy’s university. Daddy is a farmer, a vegetable production specialist, who loves Jesus, joy, people, and plants. I started college with that same career trajectory until I took my first soil science class. That class took the soil stuck to my overalls and boots and put a deep love for it in my soul. And now, 38 years later, I’m still trying to love my God with all the soil in my soul and under my feet as a soil and environmental science professor and author.

Needless to say, my first science teacher was my Daddy during our times in the gardens. Science with faith wasn’t his entire curriculum, just most of it, with a healthy dose of wisdom and hard work thrown in for good measure. He taught me the basics of photosynthesis and light and the essential nature of peace and living for Jesus all at the same time. I learned about atoms and adoration, respiration and righteousness, senescence and salvation, water and God’s wealth of love for everybody, and so much more.

I didn’t learn science and faith. I learned science with faith because both were inextricably intertwined in my lessons with Daddy. He taught me to see how nature displayed God’s characteristics of faithfulness, love, and beauty. He taught me to look for God’s glory in the microbes in the soil under our feet to the majesty in the skies above our heads. He nurtured a love for the beauty of numbers and the importance of noticing details, both in data and in decisions for future garden plans. More importantly, he (and my mother) nurtured a deep love for Jesus in the soil of my soul.  

Science with faith was normal and natural in the gardens and in our home. It wasn’t forced or faked as in making a scientific phenomenon fit a specific Bible verse (or vice versa). Rather, it was stopping and seeing the scientific principle held there in hands full of fruit, soil, or leaves and marveling at how this principle brought a fresh joy and delight in our Good God, along with bringing His Word to mind. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Psalms were my father’s favorite choices to quote while answering questions about what was happening with this plant or that soil sample. He used the same technique for both his graduate students and me, including the same technical terms and KJV language. Both types of language usually prompted more questions and further learning, for both his grad students and me. Daddy welcomed those many questions from all of us students, often sharing questions of his own that he was wondering about that day. Looking back, I think that’s where my own writing process in natural theology began – having a question about something I noticed in the garden and seeking an explanation in science which often prompted thoughts of a specific verse in Scripture. Science with faith was normal and natural to me then, and still is today in my head and in my heart.

Science with faith was what I knew in my heart and my mind, until I went to first grade and onwards in public schools and state universities for the next 23 years. Those schools tried to teach me the way I’d learned the synergy of science with faith was just a childhood dream, not the real world of data, calculations, hypotheses, and theories.

Yet, no matter how many classes or workshops I took or books or journal articles I read, those seeds about the idea of the beautiful simplicity and synergy of science with faith planted in my heart and mind kept on growing. Even without the help of others, those seeds flourished into even more ideas over the years in the soil of my soul and mind. But I kept those ideas hidden from everyone except my Jesus with Whom I had long talks while walking the woods or fields. This was because every time I tried to share those ideas with others, all I received in return was disbelief or denial, often with the dismissal that I was fanciful, with my head in the clouds (and that just wasn’t acceptable, even to the agricultural climatologists).

While teaching in secular institutions as a young professor, I had those ideas filed in cold storage with no time or encouragement to pull them out to ponder them. Later as an older professor at a faith-based institution, I’d pull out an idea or two to share with my students (whom I lovingly refer to as my guinea pigs in my constant experimentation with them for finding better ways to teach). As they responded more and more favorably to the ideas over the years, I mustered up the courage to share a few of these ideas with a trusted mentor whom I knew would be honest yet kind. After he listened closely and asked a question or two, he told me I was a caretaker of these ideas and was thus responsible for their dissemination to a wider audience than just my students. Specifically, he told me God had given the ideas and they weren’t just for me. I was tasked with writing them down for others to share in their beauty and benefit from their growth in the soil of their souls.

So, I did. I wrote down one idea after another despite much fear and trembling that I was (somehow) walking on holy ground, sowing seed for harvest. Only prayer from me and for me by my parents, husband, and friends gave me the courage to keep sowing those seeds, word after word, page after page. This soil scientist with dirt under her nails and an office full of soil and rock samples and books still feels wholly inadequate to sow seeds years later. This makes me wonder if Moses might’ve felt the same way. And maybe that’s why he kept trying to point to his brother, Aaron, for the task of sowing seed in speaking to Pharaoh or the Israelites?

Yet my Good God kept giving ideas, so I kept writing. And I’m still writing and hopefully, sowing even more seeds in doing so.

Persistent praying keeps me here. Here in the thinking and teaching, writing and wondering, listening and leaning in. Here for more joy as the strength to keep on seeking God and receiving more seed-ideas to plant in the good soil of the souls of family, students, colleagues, and friends (including ones I may never meet outside of heaven.)

But friend, if we do get to meet outside of heaven, I’d love to sit down with you and listen to your ideas and who knows? You might also be tasked with sharing these ideas with a world needing courage and hope deep in the soil of their souls. Trust me, it doesn’t take intelligence, training, or gifting to sow seed. Sowing seed requires willingness, dedication, and devotion of a heart set aside unto Jesus.

Jesus alone brings the harvest.

Jesus alone deserves the glory.

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name give glory, for Your mercy and  loving-kindness and for the sake of Your truth and faithfulness!”   Psalm 115:1 AMPC

Author Bio

Christ-follower for 50 years (this is my year of Jubilee), married almost 34 years to the most incredible man who loves Jesus and me, 2 sons of whom we're very proud, 2 lovely daughters-in-law, 2 beautiful grandbabies, learner and teacher for 22 years at Union University, author of Good Ground, Volumes 1 and 2 and Well Grounded: Cultivating Intimacy with God and weekly posts at soulscientistblog.com