Sow the Seed

As I was outside walking around on my “lawn” there were bald patches. There were also lots of weeds but there was also lots of grass.

We have been getting some kind of moisture daily for a while. It could be stinking hot and then by 3-4 in roll the clouds, thick, dark, thundering. It’s a bit bizarre.

We may not get an actual storm each day but we get an assortment of fringes, drizzle or absolute downpours.

This week, well for the past 2 days, that changed and it is supposed to be our one week of summer. 30 degrees and no storms. We are getting a good dew in the mornings to help water the grass.

I decided to sprinkle more grass seed on the bald spots of my lawn. As I was only doing patches I was too lazy to get out the spreader so I used a yogurt container and hand sprinkled. Sprinkling made me study the grass and I got discouraged because of the rocks, weeds, and bald areas. Funny, just last week I was showing off my grass to the neighbor, as I was very pleased with the progress.

What changed?

I was up close and personal with the grass today and my eyes were downward focused. I never looked up because I was purposely looking for the “bad” areas so I could seed them. When you look for bad areas you find them.

We can do that with anything or anyone, even ourselves. We study ourselves and our motives and pretty soon we are convinced we have come up short and are not worth much of anything. We might even resort to name calling: “oh I’m so dumb” or “that was stupid”. Not really helpful but we do it.

Then we start to do that with other people, we study what they are doing wrong, and low and behold we find a list of stuff. Happily we point it out to them, how they better shape up, and do better.

Do we do this with the good stuff they do as well? Or only the bad? Do you look at your own behaviour and tell yourself, “good job,” or “I am proud of you.” Probably not if I had to guess, maybe it is time to switch that around. Focus on the positives.

The other thing that had my attention while sprinkling the seed was how dry the ground is. I did the, “I should get the sprinkler, I should, I should” …thing.

But God clearly told me today that my job was to scatter seed, His job was to water and make it grow. So I scattered, moving the yogurt container side to side, letting the seed slide out fairly evenly. God used this whole process as an analogy.

He asked me what was in my hand? I said, a yogurt container. He replied, that is good you can scatter seed with that, use what you have.

I pondered this, use what you have…

He informed me that we, you and I, can scatter seeds with lots of things and to use what we have. For instance, His Word, the Bible are His seeds and wherever we are using it, we are using what we have. I only had a yogurt container and that was good. He said even if you only know one line of the Bible, scatter it wherever you go. Use what you have.

It’s not your job to water it and make it grow. It’s your job to scatter the seed and watch God make it grow. Use what you have and start scattering.