When the Plate Is Empty, the Soil Still Speaks
What the garden is teaching us about presence, alignment, and shared provision.
By Josh Singleton | Founder and Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project
The pace of change feels constant now. Every week brings another wave of headlines, another report, another reminder that what once felt steady is moving again. The currents of culture keep shifting, and every time they do, another set of reports finds its way to our inbox — the world measuring what’s already moving beneath its feet. They carry important information, but behind the numbers is a story much larger than data can hold. The latest updates spoke of reduced food aid, the end of nutrition education programs, and shifting federal priorities.
On paper, these are administrative changes. In reality, they mark the slow unraveling of systems that once tried to meet human need through structure alone. For decades, we’ve relied on programs to carry what only presence can sustain. But when those systems strain, something sacred happens — the soil begins to speak again.
Many describe this as a season of uncertainty. And in some ways, it is. Institutions are shifting, resources tightening, and familiar rhythms being redefined. But Heaven is not uncertain. God’s promises have not changed. What feels uncertain is often His gentle rearranging — loosening what we’ve leaned on so we can rest again in Him.
That same truth doesn’t only apply to systems; it applies to souls. The Garden teaches us this every day. It doesn’t rush or panic when the weather changes. It doesn’t measure its worth by what’s been taken away. It simply keeps doing what it was made to do — receive, root, and grow in season. The soil remains faithful because the Creator remains faithful.
This past week, that faithfulness looked like a group of us planting carrots together — side by side, hands in the soil, each contributing in quiet harmony. No one led, no one followed; everyone gave what they had. It wasn’t about skill or experience, but willingness. What could have been another ordinary workday became a glimpse of Heaven’s order: shared labor, shared hope, shared joy.
But even in the togetherness, the soil kept calling us into alignment. As the cultivator of the group, it was my duty to reveal what the soil was asking for — the adjustments it desired, the posture it required. Its voice was steady, but not everyone could hear it yet. My role was to be the bridge between the seen and the unseen, helping translate what the ground was already saying: slow down, pay attention, trust the process.
The soil is never silent; it just speaks in a language that requires stillness to understand. And every time we listened, the work began to flow again.
Moments like that remind us what real nourishment looks like. It’s not a full plate or a perfect plan — it’s the peace that comes from being part of something alive. The same soil that grows food is growing trust, belonging, and the kind of leadership that looks like service.
In the midst of it all, we begin to see what God meant when He said He works all things together for good. It doesn’t always look good at first. Sometimes it looks like pruning or waiting, like stillness or loss. But just as in the garden, what’s buried isn’t gone — it’s becoming.
The invitation is to stay in that process long enough for it to have its full effect. Too often, we short-circuit what God is forming by rushing ahead or trying to fix what isn’t finished. But if we stay rooted — if we let His timing shape us — the fruit that comes will not only feed us but generations to come.
And as we wait, we remember that we share the same soil. It’s easy to see the challenges of others and quietly think, them, not me. But the garden erases that distance. The same ground that sustains one sustains all. We’re not separate stories trying to survive; we’re one creation being renewed together.
So while the headlines talk about what’s being reduced or removed, the garden keeps revealing what cannot be taken: the invitation to co-labor with creation, to feed one another, and to live from a rhythm that never runs dry.
The systems may be shifting, but the gardens are steady. And they’re saying what they’ve always said:
Provision isn’t gone. It’s being reintroduced through presence.
From the Ground
“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
— James 1:4
Growth rarely happens in comfort. Perseverance is the soil where maturity forms. Most of us want fruit without staying long enough for roots. But every season of waiting, every stretch of uncertainty, every moment of pruning has purpose. God doesn’t waste a single season.
If we’ll stay present — not rushing to fix or judging another’s process, but trusting that He’s working all things for good — we’ll find that what looked like loss was simply the ground preparing for abundance.
May we stay rooted long enough for His goodness to have its full effect — in us, through us, and for those who will come after us.
