Growing Season

For many of us, springtime ignites in us a sense of newness, optimism, and growth. If you tend a garden or yard, in early spring you look for plants that have pushed through the thawing ground and popped their hardy green heads through to sunshine and warmth. One the first day you discover these re-energized plants, you probably just see a bit of green. You know there is much more to that plant than just that green spot. Let’s use these springtime arrivals to help us think about our spiritual journey.

Before it appears at the surface, that plant started as a seed, bulb, or dormant root. It was there, you just couldn’t see it yet. When conditions are right, a tender shoot makes its way through the soil and pops through! That is what you are seeing now. But it doesn’t end there.
The seedling gets busy unfolding leaves, making more leaves, and extending a stem. It is building something much bigger than you saw on that first day.

Eventually something new appears that is attached to the stem. It’s a bud! It’s probably tightly closed and appears simply as a round green ball. After a few days you may see it loosening its grip on what it is hiding. You may even see some color appear! The bud continues to open to reveal beautiful, colorful petals that are unfolding and expanding. The plant is revealing more about itself.

As the petals continue to expand, you begin to see something different in the middle of them. The appearance of this can vary widely from plant to plant, but its purpose is largely the same: to produce fruit and reproduce itself to make another plant like it; sometimes hundreds more plants like it!

The plant matures and accomplishes its mission. Part of that mission may be a beautiful demonstration of color and beauty, or it may be providing shade or shelter for something or someone else, or it may be bearing delicious fruit or vegetables for people or animals. The other important part of the mission is reproducing itself. The marvel, beauty, and benefit the plant offers extends way beyond that single plant.

Of course, you know this message isn’t just about gardening! It’s about you! You are the plant and the transformation it goes through can represent your life journey, and more specifically your faith journey.

The first green appearance may represent your birth, or your initial exposure to faith. It seems like just the beginning but there’s more going on than what appears. The bulb, seed, or root below has been preparing for this journey and it is getting ready to launch you! This is the Holy Spirit at work providing nutrition and support, and definition to your life. The appearance of leaves and a strengthening stem is the spiritual growth you experience throughout your life through study of the Bible, classes as a youngster, and spiritual guidance from a parent or someone else. Once again, the is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s have the bloom and petals represent the giftedness and talents God has given you! You are a work of art, equipped to do important things God is calling you to do.

And finally, just as the center of the flower is designed to reproduce the plant, so are you designed to pass on the faith to other people. God desires “all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people (1 Timothy 2:4-6).” We are a part of sharing that message with others. We live it, we speak it, and we support it so that many others can come to know Jesus.