What’s In Your Seed Bag?

The other day a friend remarked to me that sometimes he wished he had the audience of Joel Osteen. I asked Why? And he said that if he had the audience Joel Osteen has he knew exactly what he would say to them and the opportunity to reach so many lives must be a fantastic thing.

My response to that was “God has entrusted to Joel Osteen whom He would entrust to Joel Osteen and He has entrusted to you those whom He would entrust to you.” And then I told him our job was to simply scatter seed.

My experience is that when people consider the parable Jesus told about the sower, as recorded in Matthew 13:3-8 they tend to focus on where the seed fell, how the seed grew, and how much fruit was brought forth. Seldom, if ever, have I heard any emphasis upon the sower. The very first thing Jesus told us was that a sower went forth to sow.

I grew up on a farm. And I’ve planted (sowed) a lot of seed. And I’ve seen a lot of seed grow producing good healthy plants that yielded a very rich crop of great looking fruit. I’ve also seen seed that has produced some pretty awful looking plants that never produced any fruit at all. With corn the unhealthy plants always seemed to be the ones at the edge of the field. The plants at the end of the row or the outside of all the rows. I’ve also seen a lot of seed that went into the ground that never grew.

I watched my dad when he planted the fields, and when he got to the end of the row and still had seed left in the hopper (bag) he scooped up the remaining seed that had not been planted and just scattered it down the row. We never left the field with seed in the bag.

I learned something on the farm that I did not even realize I was learning at the time. And that is we never had any control over the seed. Dad bought the best seed he could and we planted it, fertilized it, kept the weeds (tares) out of the fields, watered it, and hoped that the weather cooperated and that we would get a good crop. We would protect the plants, tried to keep the insects off of them, and we nurtured the plants as best as any farmer could and then we picked whatever crop was yielded. Some years we would get a great crop. More food than we could hardly deal with. Other times we would not get such a bumper crop and I would wonder why we even planted anything at all.

Another thing that I learned was that farming is hard work. And I definitely knew that at the time. The more you planted almost assuredly translated into the more you had to pick. And the more you had to pick, the more you had to help mom can. We had to shuck the corn, clean the beans, and cut the roots and stems off the turnips, potatoes, and pumpkins. Farming was hard work. And the bigger the crop, the more work there was.

But the one constant from year to year, season to season, was that we were going to plant seed. Dad never bought seed just to have it remain in the seed bags in the barn. Our seed was for planting. Whether it got planted in the rich soil of the field or whether it got planted in the bad soil at the edge of the field, all seed was going to be planted if dad had his way about it. We hoped every seed planted was going to grow into a huge healthy plant, and we tried to control the few things we could control in planting and watering the seed, but regardless the outcome, we planted the seed.

Too many people when considering the parable Jesus told focus on where the seed fell, or how the seed grew, or the crops it produced. All of the things the sower had little control over. And not enough of us focus on the one thing the sower had complete control over, sowing the seed.

Some of us think we would like to plant a huge bumper crop like some vast country field. We never realize just how much work that is and we complain because God hasn’t entrusted a huge multi-acre field to plant in. And so we hold onto our seed and wait for God to provide us a field worthy of us planting in.

God hasn’t given every one of us a large multi-thousand acre farm to plant. Some of us have just been entrusted a garden. Others of us have only been entrusted a few pots in the kitchen window. But the one thing I am sure of is we all have seed to plant.

I have to imagine that there are Missionaries in the world today looking at the Christian family of God and are just wondering why don’t we just plant our seed?

How about you? If you are a Christian, what are you doing with the Gospel seed you’ve been entrust with? Are you planting it? Or are you just leaving it in the seed bag from one planting season to the next?

I can think of few things sadder than standing before the Throne of a Holy God and having him ask you “Why is your seed bag full?” My prayer for you today is that you would plant the Gospel seed you have been entrusted with. In whatever field you have been given. Don’t wait until you stand before God with a full bag of unplanted seed. Go plant the seed today.