When we plant seeds, we fertilize with faith. A small seed looks nothing like the full-grown plant.
We rely on the packet photos to inform our planting. We exercise faith in the seller, that they are
selling us a real possiblity that, given the right conditions, the tiny pieces of organic matter in the
paper packet will turn into tomatoes or potatoes or zinnias.
The Bible says we reap what we sow. Our spiritual seeds are also planted with faith. What we
plant does not look like the finished fruit. Planting a seed of time in the word of God sometimes
takes much faith to believe the time invested will yield a transformed life.
Planting time in prayer takes faith. Just talking to God, or what sometimes feels like talking to
the ceiling, doesn’t seem like enough to produce miracles or provision or more holiness. It seems silly,
sometimes, when it doesn’t seem utterly desperate. Some blessed people, I have heard say,
immediately feel a sense of the Holy Spirit when they turn to prayer. Perhaps it is easier for them
to plant the seeds of prayer because the experience of prayer feels somewhat like the fruit of prayer,
but for most of us, I suspect, we pray like we plant tomato seeds: hoping the promise of fruit is true,
because the seed we are planting does not look or feel like the promise.
Jesus, help us plant the tiny, faith-fertlized seeds of Bible-reading and prayer, so, in due time,
we can reap the harvest of holiness.