"He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.'"
-Matthew 13:31-32
I've recently been listening to sermons from Elevation Church about faith. One thing that I've been learning is that Christian life is a process. Jesus often talked about how the Kingdom of God is like a seed that God plants in our hearts. What we often fail to realize is that this means that the Kingdom of God takes time to grow. We lose faith in ourselves and in the growth of the Kingdom of God in our lives.
This semester I've been working on my senior design project. Coming into the class, I didn't expect it to be too much work. Of course, I expected that I would have to put in some work, but didn't realize that this project would be a lot of work. I've never pulled an all-nighter in my entire undergraduate career until this semester. I've had to stay up to finish an English paper and to finish a piece of my senior design project.
Throughout the semester, the professor gives us assignments related to the progress of our project. This helps us stay on track with the project so we finish it on time. However, I'm the kind of person who likes to get everything done at one time. I normally procrastinate on assignments until the night before, where I complete the assignment all at once. I don't enjoy working at something for a long period of time. The night that I stayed up to work on my project, I was stuck on a part of the design. I felt so helpless as I kept trying to fix the design for hours, only to get nowhere.
I realized that this feeling of helplessness often shows up in my life of faith. I want to grow in my faith quickly, not having to work at it day in and day out. However, the nature of a seed is that it has to cultivated until it grows. A farmer doesn't sow a seed and then expect it to grow in a single night. He tills the soil and pulls the weeds until the seed grows into what it's meant to be.
I think my issue is that I sometimes see the seed rather than what the seed is meant to become. A farmer doesn't choose a seed based on what the seed is, but based on what the seed will become. A seed is amazingly unimpressive and useless. However, once the seed grows, it bears fruit that a farmer can eat and sell. When the farmer looks at a seed, he doesn't see a seed; he sees a tree. He has faith that the seed will grow in its time.
What if we had the same attitude about our lives? What if we stopped looking at the unimpressive seed and starting looking at the tree? A person who has faith in something impressive doesn't really have great faith. True faith is when someone can look at a seed, but see a tree. True faith is when someone has faith in the process. There will be times when our lives seems unimpressive and maybe even useless. However, the Bible assures us that the seed is always growing, whether we know it or not. "Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how (Mark 4:27)."
Experiencing the Kingdom of God is a process. There are times where we will have to take care of the seed when nothing seems to be happening. However, God is always working. Trust that God will work in your life, even when it seems to be a long and slow process. Keeping cultivating faith in your life. Have faith in the process.
-Smart
Good post!! "True faith is when someone can look at a seed, but see a tree."
ReplyDeleteI love the verse about the mustard seed. I think often times people look at the end result of someone's faith, hard work, etc. but overlook all the years that it took someone to get there. We do have to keep cultivating what God gave us. But also reminded that we water it, but God is the one that makes it grow.