And He was saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows--how, he himself does not know. "The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. "But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."
And He said, "How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? "It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade."
My thoughts -
I guess it's confession time. I confess that I am a bit of a control freak. I like to have my hands in pretty much everything. If I'm not doing it then I don't know that it is being done. This is a real issue for me.
I am also a bit of a pessimist. If I don't see immediate results then my mind starts to fill with a wide assortments of terrible and spectacular ways what I am doing will fail. Reality has never been nearly as impressive as my imagination and my imagination is nearly limitless with the creative possibilities of total failure.
In short, I do not trust well. I do not trust God. I do not trust people. I rely on myself, my own strength, and results that I can easily see with my own eyes. And I'd better see them quickly, too.
Jesus, with these parables, describes the kingdom of God in ways that challenge my way of being. In the first parable here we see a man sowing seed. He sows the seed and then goes to bed. There is nothing he can do to make it grow.
It's not that the man isn't doing any work. He is. He is doing what he is called by God to do. But what he can not do is make the seed grow. He doesn't even really understand the process. That process is one that God alone fully understands.
If I were the sower here I may tend to the garden. I may observe the crops. I may water and weed. But the growth of the seed is between the seed and God.
But that's not good enough for me. I can't trust the seed to grow. I can't trust that God desires nothing more than for the seed to grow and is working in ways I can't begin to understand to make that happen. I can't let go. And yet I still can't make the seed grow. And if I don't see some immediate growth I just don't know how to handle it.
In the second parable here we see a very small seed, a mustard seed. Someone like me could see that seed and be unimpressed. It is tiny, after all. What could it possibly amount to? God forbid it if the seed didn't take immediately. I was unimpressed to begin with. And yet here Jesus shows us something truly great that comes from something so small and unassuming.
God works in all of us in ways I can't even begin to understand. I have a hard time dealing with this. I have a hard time allowing that the Creator of the Universe is, in fact, quite the competent Deity and capable of accomplishing what is needed.
I am tasked with sowing seed and this is not always good enough for me. I need to be in control. I need to make the seed grow. And yet I don't even understand the process. And let's be honest here, I'm not even that good at sowing the seed. It's not like I could handle greater tasks that are beyond any mortal.
So when will I learn to let go and trust God to be God? Does God not desire to reconcile himself to all people? Does God not work to that purpose in all people? We can preach. We can teach. We can spread the good news of Jesus everywhere we go sowing seed. But we can not reconcile one person to God. We can not save one person. That task is God's alone through Christ.
But we plant the seeds and even the tiniest seed, when God encourages it to grow, can become a tree so large that birds can find shelter in it and it can provide shade for all who are near.
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