Mark 4:26-29 - He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
You do not have to know how something works to benefit from
it. Millions of people use cars daily to
quickly travel long distances who know almost nothing about they work. People turn on their kitchen sink faucet in
the morning with no clue about how that water just “magically” appears at their
fingertips. Smartphones. . . forget it.
. . almost none of us how they work, including many of the people working at Apple. We all use and benefit from hundreds of
technologies that we have no way to explain.
Jesus says the kingdom of God is like that. We are encouraged to “work the soil” of it
without so much as a clue about how the growth actually happens. We watch for the growth and then we harvest when
it comes. It’s so simple, right? Just keep scattering seeds. Get the sickle out when the plants have
reached maturity. Plant and harvest. .
.that’s all you need to know, right?
Implicit in this story is that the farmer actually knows much
more than that. She knows that seeds
need water and so she waters the ground.
She knows that there are times of the year that seeds will never grow if
they are planted then. She knows that
once the sprouts break up from the ground, they will need sunlight, so where
she plants the seeds matters. Likewise,
you need to know much more than how to use the brake and accelerator pedals to
drive a car. There is a learning curve
to farming, driving a car, using a smartphone, and navigating the kingdom of
God.
Unlike a car and a smartphone, farming and the kingdom of
God have elusive mysteries to their inner workings that may not be “figured out.” Even the most technologically advanced 21st
century farms have bad harvests that they cannot explain and get surprised by
unusually good harvests as well. The
inner workings of the kingdom of God are even more unknowable. If we are to get to the harvest, we have to
trust that God will make it happen in ways we will never understand. The idea here is to trust the mysterious
processes of God in those times between seeds planted and harvests reaped.
We’re in one of those periods right now. We were in one before pandemics, wars, hurricanes,
and economic upheavals occurred so the process is even more invisible now. It’s hard to imagine how or when the next
great harvest will come, but it will indeed come. Trust the process. . . or more accurately, trust
the One in charge of it. Keep planting
and watering. The Lord of the Harvest
will do the rest, even though we will never understand how.
Question: What are
the things about the kingdom that you do know despite all the things you don’t?
Prayer: Lord, we sometimes
strain to trust that You are bringing the next harvest. We confess that struggle in the same breath
that proclaim our trust that You will indeed do it. Increase our hope and faith and show us the
things we can do right now to participate in the process. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for those running for public office right now, including those you are not
planning to vote for.
Song: Hand of
Providence – Michael W. Smith
