Watching Them Grow…..

These are lettuces.
But these are no ordinary lettuces.
These are lettuces that I have grown in my garden!

I have never really been much of a gardener. I love being outside with the family if we are working on a project or all doing chores together but I have never liked doing it by myself! I have tried numerous times at planting a garden and growing my own vegetables but thus far have had no luck…..or probably more to the point, dedication and perseverance!

I loved the thought of growing my own things but lacked the commitment that comes with the process!

You see, you don’t just plant your plants and then pull them out fully grown and ready to eat 2 hours later. Nope, there is a process that you have to go through:

You plant.
You water.
You wait.
You water.
You wait.
You nourish.
You wait.
You water.
You wait.

So as you can see, it takes time and effort. But you know, something amazing happens in the middle. If you take the time to look after your plants, they grow! They go from small seedlings to ready to eat produce! Amazing right!

But it doesn’t often happen without the “middle”, without the watering, without the nourishing and without the care. Now there are some plants that are so hardy that they can grow without much care and attention but the majority require love and commitment.

Isn’t our walk with God like that?
Sure we can walk through life without putting much love and attention into our Christian walk, and we can get by. But the more time we put into our walk with Christ, the more we commit, the more we love, and the more we nurture, the better our relationship with God and others will be. And it’s all that watering and waiting that produces the best fruit. It’s the stuff in the middle that most people don’t see that stretches and grows us the most.

So as I sit down with my lunch (which is a salad filled with lettuce, spring onions and tomatoes all from my garden!) I am reminded of the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13: 24-30.

There are so many lessons in this parable but the one that struck me today is you have to sow a seed to reap a harvest. I know this sounds blindingly obvious, but without first planting my small lettuce plants, and then looking after them, I would not have had a harvest. The other thing that hit me today was you need to choose carefully where you sow your seed. The soil has to be ready and fed in order for the seed to grow. As in the natural, so with the spiritual.

So what are you sowing into at the moment?
Are you planting those small seeds and expecting a harvest?
Is the soil right to produce good fruit?
Are you caring for those seeds that have been planted?

Whether you are talking about natural planting or spiritual planting, it is my prayer that you would feed and nourish those seeds this week, and then reap the harvest!