The Miracle of the Seed

I’d forgotten the thrill of that first appearance! From seed to seedling. Take a look at a seed. So tiny! Seemingly so lifeless. If you leave the seed in a packet, it just remains a seed. But if you take that seed and plant it in good soil, lovingly nurture it with fertilizer, nutrients and water, that tiny seed miraculously starts to break out of its shell and grow towards the light becoming a living plant with a bright future for producing something beautiful and nutritious. We plant the seed. God nurtures it.

At various times in our lives we’ve been the seed, the soil, the nutrients, the nurturer, the plant. Know where you are in each situation and what role God is asking you to play in that situation. Then stand back and watch the work of the Lord!

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Do the Work!

Every good gardener knows that weeding, feeding, and pruning is necessary for a healthy plant. You can’t just stick a plant in the ground and hope for the best! I look at my neighbor’s flowers and admire how lovely they are. But you know what, every morning she’s up early watering, feeding, and pruning. She’s putting the work in and seeing the results. So in what are you not seeing the results you expect? Is it your health and fitness? A relationship? A job? Then do the work! Feed. Weed. Prune. Then step back and watch it grow.

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Behold the Lemon Tree!

Okay, so ya’ll know this lemon tree has been teaching me for a couple of years now. From “Don’t Be Like the Lemon Tree” to “Look Up” to “More Lessons” and now…. let me tell ya, this lemon tree has had the last laugh. I had been out of the country for a few days and when I got back of course I took a stroll out back. As I turned the corner to the garden, now put to winter rest, I was hit by this bright light of yellow and there stood the lemon tree in all it’s glory, full of lemons, laughing at me and shouting “Look at me now!”. I tell ya all I could do is laugh, I mean a big ole belly shaking laugh, shake my head and say “you got me Mr. Lemon Tree, you got me”.

If you are familiar with Mark Batterson’s “The Circle Maker”, we are encouraged to circle our prayers and hold fast to God’s promise that He will hear and answer. I’ve read this book and circled the same prayers three times across the past five years. For one specific prayer, it was just like the lemon tree. It seemed God would never answer, that He had gone silent. But I truly felt that when He did answer, it would be spectacular. Let me tell ya, this year…..HE DID THAT! Just as I had imagined, in a way that we least expected, when we had all but given up. The scripture that kept me was “Still I am certain to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

So lissen…(yeah, I meant it the way I spelled it), if you’ve got unfruitful lemon trees in your life, circle that bad boy! Circle it and hold on. Listen for the lessons. When the time it is right, it will come forth and you too will shout “Behold the Lemon Tree"!”.

Happy Sunday Saints!

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