The Garden Where I Am Becoming A Child Again

Seeing my boys, myself, and the Kingdom through the soil

By Josh Singleton | Founder and Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project

Some days adulthood feels like one long balancing act. Bills, schedules, expectations, the pressure to be productive and dependable, to keep everyone else okay. It is easy to believe that growing up means tightening up, trading wonder for worry and curiosity for control. Yet in the middle of all of that noise, I keep sensing a quiet invitation. What if real maturity is not about carrying more, but about becoming more like a child again. God has been using two simple classrooms to confront that in me, my boys and the garden.

I am starting to see my boys differently. For a long time, I treated childhood like preparation for real life. I wanted my boys to be responsible, respectful, and aware. I wanted them to care about the house, the work, and the effort that goes into keeping a family going. Underneath that was a quiet fear. If I did not teach them a lesson right now, they would never learn. So I tightened things up. I held the line on messes. I tried to turn every moment into a lesson.

Then I started to really watch them. What I saw has been blowing my mind. Children are already instinctively alive. They are not waiting on us to flip a switch. Curiosity is already pulsing through them. Play is already wired in as their main way of learning. Our job as parents is not to create that. Our job is to protect it, shape it gently, and give it room to breathe.

Watch a small child outside for ten minutes. They are not worried about the schedule. They are pulled toward whatever is alive, a bug on the ground, water in a puddle, a stick that suddenly becomes a shovel or a sword or a magic wand. They do not separate play and learning. When they play, they are learning. When they are curious, their whole brain and body are in growth mode. Curiosity is not a distraction from real life. Curiosity is the mechanism God built in for growth and for safety. When a child feels safe, curiosity blooms. When a plant has healthy soil, roots explore. When presence replaces pressure, life multiplies.

Most of us grew up with some version of, “If you really cared, you would clean up after yourself.” So when our kids leave a trail behind them, it is easy to assume they do not care. But children care in a different language. They show care through engagement. They show care by entering fully into what is in front of them. That full engagement is what creates the mess in the first place. Before we correct, it helps to pause and ask a better question. Instead of, “Why do you not care about this mess,” we can ask, “What kind of life happened here today.” Toys everywhere might mean they were building a world together. Crumbs on the table might mean they actually ate here and laughed here. Shoes and sticks piled by the door might mean they went outside and came back in. We still teach stewardship, but we start by honoring the life that made the mess.

One picture has helped me a lot. Parents are the big ones. Children are the little ones. The flow of responsibility goes from big to little, not the other way around. We carry the adult stress, not them. We invite them into responsibility slowly and kindly. Sometimes that looks like doing it for them because love covers when they are tired or lost in imagination. Sometimes that looks like doing it with them because formation happens through shared work and presence. Sometimes that looks like watching while they do it because maturity grows when they feel supported, not controlled. All three are good. The wisdom is in reading the moment.

A lot of our harshness as parents comes from fear. If I do not clamp down right now, they will become lazy. If I do not correct this every time, they will never learn. So we try to teach a lesson in every moment. Constant correction does not create roots. It creates pressure. A better rhythm is to quietly ask, is something really at stake here, or am I just uncomfortable. Is this about their heart, or my need for order. Will this still matter a year from now. If it is mostly about my comfort, I can let it go, or quietly help and circle back later. I can even say, “I am going to help with this one because I love you, not because you cannot do it. Next time we will do it together.” That keeps love ahead of correction.

What my boys are teaching me at home, the garden keeps whispering in the soil. Both are living classrooms. Both are forming me. In the beginning, I approached both parenting and gardening the same way, tight, tidy, striving to make everything work. I thought good stewardship meant control. I thought safety meant order. But the soil, like a child, refuses to be rushed. You can water every day and still have to wait. You can map out the beds perfectly and still watch seeds take their own way of sprouting.

The garden began to disciple me. It showed me that striving does not grow things. Presence does. Healthy soil, like healthy people, forms in rhythm, not in hurry. The moment you try to make it perform, it starts to break down. Just like my boys, the garden revealed that curiosity is the mechanism of growth and the evidence of safety. When soil is healthy, roots explore. When presence replaces pressure, life begins to multiply.

The same God who wired my boys with curiosity wired the earth with instinct. The garden does not strive. It responds. It does not panic when seasons change. It adjusts. My boys live in that same freedom. They are not worried about bills, money, obligations, food, or time. Their ease into instincts is evidence of freedom, to be, to explore, to learn through play. Play and learning are not separate. For them it is all one motion. The moment they are allowed to follow what is alive, learning happens naturally. It is not forced. It is formed.

The Neighborhood Garden Project has invited me to see the world differently, not as a system to manage, but as a living ecosystem designed for trust. It is teaching me to move from striving to presence, from pressure to partnership. I used to think our mission was to build gardens and feed people. Now I see the deeper mission is to create environments where people feel safe enough to be curious again. That is when transformation happens, whether in soil, soul, or system.

My boys remind me of this every day. They are not worried, yet they are provided for. They wake up and move toward what is alive, and somehow they have everything they need. Watching them, and watching the garden, I am learning to move at the pace of design and instinct, trusting that God will sustain what truly matters. Order can still be stewardship, but not obsession. Work can still be sacred, but not striving. Safety, real safety, is born from presence, not perfection.

Jesus said, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). He did not call us back to immaturity. He invited us back to trust, back to the simplicity that exists before fear teaches us to control everything. My boys are living proof that the Kingdom is closer than we think. Their curiosity is faith in motion. Their play is a kind of worship. Their instinct to explore is one way heaven moves through the earth.

This childlike way is not just sweet. It is the key that unlocks adult life in our culture. Most adults around us are exhausted. We live with constant pressure to perform, to produce, to prove our worth, and to keep everyone else comfortable. We call that responsible adulthood, but much of it is fear in a grown up costume. We carry bills, expectations, and outcomes as if everything rests on our shoulders. No wonder our bodies and souls are tired.

The way of the Kingdom cuts through that. Childlike does not mean careless. It means correctly weighted. I carry what is mine to carry, and I refuse to carry what belongs to God. I show up. I tend the soil in front of me. I love my people. I steward what I have been given, and then I let God sustain everything else. That is the shift. From “I must hold it all together” to “I will be faithful with my part and trust that God is holding everything together.”

This is what my boys and the garden are teaching me. My boys live without worrying about bills, money, obligations, food, or time. The garden grows without spreadsheets and stress. Both move at the pace of design and respond to what is in front of them. When I join that rhythm, something in my adult life unlocks. Responsibility is still real, but it is no longer powered by anxiety. Work is still sacred, but it is no longer driven by fear. I become a different kind of adult, one who is grounded, present, and free enough to be led.

If the garden is the classroom, children are the teachers. They show us what the Kingdom looks like in motion, curiosity without fear, play without shame, trust without constant calculation. So I am learning to stop striving to build the Kingdom and to start living from it, because it is already here, growing quietly wherever presence and trust meet.

The garden and my boys are teaching me the same truth, that growth begins with curiosity, and curiosity blooms where safety is felt. Our home and our gardens are not about performance. They are about presence. They are about trusting the design, and letting God sustain everything else.