Soul Cultivation

A great deal of effort is needed to properly prepare a plot of land to become a cultivated garden. This PDF explains the steps of garden cultivation and includes a number of words also used in the church context such as stewardship, worship, refine, goodwill, and fertility: https://casfs.ucsc.edu/documents/for-the-gardener/soil_cultivation.pdf. All of this preparation work is done months (or, in the case of orchards, years) before any produce is seen. The sacrificial work done to cultivate soil is much like the work necessary to cultivate a soul.