Just Sow The Seeds

When we turn on the news it seems that there is never anything good, all over the world it seems evil prevails. Even close to home we read and hear about murders, drive by shootings, drugs, and a host of many other crimes and atrocities being committed. Even in our own homes we have problems, we work all the time and still cant make ends meet, we stay stressed out and fed up with how things are going in our lives. We worry about our kids and loved ones as they go out into this cruel dark world, and things sometimes just don’t ever work out the way we planned.

You would think that after 2000 years of Christianity and the spreading of the good news that things would be getting better, but sometimes it seems that we are headed downhill fast and things are getting worse by the day.

Has life ever beaten you up so bad that you wanted to just give up? With all the things going on in the world today have you ever cried out to God “What’s the use?”

If Christians are planting seeds, where is the fruit of our labor? If we are sowing seeds and following the great commission found in Matthew 28:19 to “ Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” why are our pews empty? Why don’t our brothers and sisters attend church more often? Sometimes I cry out “Lord I feel like im planting the seed but where is the harvest?” “When will it come?” Do you ever feel that way? Sometimes It seems that the seed just isn’t taking root. It seems that we are plowing the ground and planting the seeds but the harvest isn’t near. Maybe we as a church and as a nation are in a spiritual drought and the seed isn’t getting enough water. Or maybe we aren’t tending the soil and putting in the fertilizer and the nutrients, or maybe it just isn’t quite time for the harvest and we just need to be patient.

I know sometimes we can’t help but wonder why things aren’t happening in our churches or in our lives. We feel like we don’t see the results of our labors and sometimes we think the good stuff will never come. Hang on, there’s still hope.

Lets look at our text today Mark 4:26-29

Let me just say that the word of God , once sown produces fruit, sometimes slowly but always surely.

So how does a seed go from this (hold up squash seed) to this (hold up the fruit)? I don’t know it just does, Jesus even said that the farmer doesn’t know how it grows.

When we read the scripture it seems that the farmer isn’t worried about the crop at all. He plants the seed and just goes about his business, sleeping and rising, going about his day to day activities patiently waiting until the day comes for the harvest. He doesn’t know how or when the harvest will be but he knows it will come and that when its ready he will begin the harvest.

I remember when I was a young boy spending summer days at my grandparents just outside of Jonesville LA. In the Sandy Lake community on the Loop Road helping them on their 3 acre farm it seemed that sometimes it would take forever for those tomatoes and Pink eyed purple hulls to be ready to pick. I would look at them tomato plants every day eagerly anticipating the day that those juicy red tomatoes would be sliced up and placed between two slices of bread, and eagerly anticipated the day when we would set on the porch and shell those peas and talk about life and the good old days. Even though I was eager and impatient my grandparents seemed like it was no big deal, they just went about their day not worrying about it at all, but when the time was right the harvest began. Oh how I miss those days.

But fortunately I get to re-live some of those moments with my grandchildren, the shoe may be on the other foot but the moments are just as precious. Kaden looks at our tomato plants every day anticipating the day when he will go out to the garden and all those green tomatoes will be juicy and red. He and Gauge have watched eggs in a wrens nest anticipating the day that they would hatch. As I watch them I remember when I was just as impatient about things but throughout my life I have learned that good things come to those who wait.

That’s what Jesus is telling us in the scripture today, don’t worry about the harvest, just sow the seed and the harvest will come. It may come slowly, but it’s going to come. Friends I don’t know a lot but I know this if we plant the seed and tend the soil- The harvest will come right when its supposed to.