May 4 – “On Sowing”

Sowing.  I have always had a picture of sowing in my non-farmer brain.  It's that one that they used to show years ago in children's Sunday School.  The guy in the little short dress is walking through a field with a basket throwing seeds everywhere.  That was always sowing to me.  Until today.  I had one of those Ah-ha moments.   We went to the house to work in the yard.  We were also hoping that maybe our contractor would show up with a painter in tow.  Chris even brought the swatches (why do they call them "swatches"?  Why not "blobs of paint"?  Or maybe even "paint color samples"?) from Sherwin Williams so she could show him her choices.  But no such luck today.  The only work that happened was what we did.   So, on to what we did.  After doing a house walk-through with those paint thingies, and a back yard walk through to check out new growth on the trees (there is more growth on the pecan tree!), we turned our energies to the front yard.  Well, actually we went to WalMart first to buy some dirt.  That's another thing that I've wondered about.  Isn't there enough dirt in the world?  Why do we have to buy more?  Well, we took the obviously special dirt back to the house with the plan to start dumping it and spreading it and leveling out the yard.  We had some speed bumps along the way, though.  Roots from the tree we had ground up.  They were still everywhere in the yard.  And every time we pulled one up, it would hit another.  And some of them were really big … and heavy.  We dug and pulled for hours.  Chris even let me play with the ax after awhile.  It really helped, but I know I'll be sore tomorrow.  When we finally declared truce with the root population, Chris started preparing the flower bed, and I worked on mixing dirt and leveling the yard itself.    So what was the big lesson about sowing.  It's hard work.  I never stopped to think that chunking seeds was not the only thing involved in sowing.  The ground has to be broken up (I did that today.  I even broke a shovel).  Sometimes fresh dirt, or dirt treated with special vitamins and minerals (What do they do, anyway?  Crumble up Flinstones vitamins in the dirt?)  has to be spread and mixed with the existing dirt.  And sometimes mulch is involved.  It was in our case.  All the remnants of that ground up tree are still there.  And the plants won't grow with just mulch.  It has to be the right combination.  And the bottom line is, somebody has to do all that work before the guy in the skirt gets handed his basket.   So maybe the spiritual connection is like that, too.  Maybe it takes more work to "plant a seed" than I thought.  Maybe planting a spiritual seed in somebody's life is going out of your way to say hi, or to ask how someone is doing – and stop to listen.  Maybe it's changing a light bulb or a tire.  Maybe it's spending time with someone over enough time to really develop a relationship with them.  Maybe then, when you do say something about Jesus, they will actually listen.  Sowing is hard work.  But it sure is worth it when the growing starts.    Isaiah 55:10-11 says, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."   Father, that sowing is hard work.  Please let us see the results of it.  Amen.