Question for you.
Think back to when you were a little child of 5 or 6. Do you remember doing this? You probably did it in kindergarten or Sunday school. Do you remember planting the little seed in a white styrofoam cup filled with potting soil, watering it carefully, and waiting for it to grow?
Do you remember looking at it every day and wondering if or when you would see the results of your efforts? And then, wonderously, there it is! A little speck of green stem begins to rise out of the dirt. And then it sprouts a few small tender leaves. And, voila! Your efforts at planting that seed, giving it time and attention, and carefully tending to it have paid off. You have created a beautiful masterpiece! You may have even very carefully protected it from too much sunshine or too much water. And you may even have felt a spark of love for this beautiful little plant.
Now, think about what would have happened to that little seed if you had planted it in that cup, not bothered to cover it well with soil, not watered it, left it in the sun too long, or completely ignored it. The seed would never have sprouted, the stem would never have risen, the leaves would never have grown, and there would be no results from your feeble effort to grow something.
Well, as you are probably already thinking…..people are like that too!
My husband loves to plant things. He has spent endless hours for years tending a vegetable garden that serves to provide nourishment for us. When others would put sod on a new lawn, he prefers to plant seed and wait for it to become a lawn. I have watched him patiently and consistently weed, water, and wait for new life and new growth to appear.
Last year, he bought me several beautiful little blooming iris plants. He carefully took care of them as they sat on the window sill in the kitchen. I was going to throw them out when the blooms faded and fell off leaving only stems. But he took them, and with hardly a word, he cared for them for a year. Every day, he checked them and I saw nothing happening. I couldn’t believe that he would persevere.
And then, the magic happened! One of them began to bloom again….beautiful delicate purple flowers. And then another one. And, even today, there is a third one about to open it’s flower at any moment. It is incredible!
It’s actually rather convicting to even write this about him. Actually, I can’t seem to make anything grow. I have the proverbial black thumb while he has the classic green one. I would have given up on the garden, the lawn, and the flowers long before he did.
So today, my friends, I want to encourage you to reflect on the proverbial seeds that you are sowing. The words that we say, the actions that we take, and the attitude in our hearts will either plant seeds of doubt, fear, and failure or they will plant seeds of confidence, hope, and success.
Sometimes, we plant these seeds in others and sometimes, we plant these seeds with ourselves. Today, my hope for you is that the seeds that you plant will inspire others and yourself to grow into the masterpiece that they and you were created to be.