Each spring, I plant mint in a pot on my patio table. I love the taste of mint and it is also supposed to help keep mosquitos away. This past summer, when we went on vacation, I forgot to ask a neighbor to water my mint plant. When I got home, the plant looked pathetic. All the growth was withered and it didn’t look like there was much hope of the plant surviving. I decided to cut away all the dead leaves and stems and water the small amount of the plant that was left. It was my last-ditch effort to keep the plant alive. A few weeks later, I was shocked to see my mint plant alive and thriving. It had grown bigger than it was before I went on vacation!
There are times in life when I get frustrated that things I’m working on are not going as I expected. It can be that my blog isn’t getting as many views as I would like. It may be that I am not able to get as many students signed up for after school I want. Even planning and starting to produce my podcast, I can allow myself to doubt it growing. It is easy to get discouraged and doubt when I let my mind go there.
In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul spoke to the Corinthians about this very thing. In verses 6-7 he says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Paul understood that he couldn’t force things to grow. Paul is specifically talking about people living for Jesus, but I think you can apply the principle to anything.
My part is planting the seed and taking care of it but I have to allow God to bring the growth. If I think about my blog, there isn’t really anything I can do to force people to read it. I can do my part by consistently putting up new posts and letting people know about them, but after that I have to leave it in God’s hand. With a House Church campus at my house, it can be discouraging if there aren’t as many people at a meeting as I would like. But I have to remember that all I can do is invite people and make my house available. I have to leave the growth up to God.
However, even more important is reminding myself that growth is not just represented by a number. If one person is impacted by a blog post, that is enough. That is better than 1,000 people reading it. I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago you can go check out. A successful church service doesn’t mean that there were tons of people at it. If God is moving and impacting lives, it is a success. Often when I look at things from God’s perspective, there is a lot of growth that I am not paying attention to.
When I start to get discouraged that things are not growing as I hoped they would, I have to remind myself to stop trying to be the one to grow it. I have plant and water the seed and allow God to bring the growth.
until next time…