Of Seedtime and Harvest – Sunday, May 01, 1983
With the coming of warmer weather, many of us will be spending time in our gardens. If we meditate a bit while we are there, we can harvest more than food and flowers. We can gather wisdom as well.
There are lessons to be learned from plants and soil: lessons of life and growth. Indeed just those two words can be a short sermon to us. John Henry Newman once wrote, “Growth is the only evidence of life.”1
We might remember that when we are tempted to stop and stagnate along our way in this world. The secret to the foundation of youth is to be constantly growing, learning, developing and becoming better today than we were yesterday with plans to improve even more tomorrow.
Another good lesson from the garden is that growth takes place from within. Even the most inexperienced gardener would not attempt to make his plants grow larger by pulling on their leaves or threatening them with dire consequences if they don’t live up to his expectations. Yet how often do we criticize or condemn children or others in our care. We call this constructive and tell ourselves that it will do them good. But people like plants grow and flourish best when they are given loving care and a healthy environment. Under such conditions every person can flower into the beautiful and unique creation that is their potential.
Perhaps one of the most profound principles we can get from growing things is patience. A seed cannot be rushed overnight into a mature plant no matter how frantically we work on the project. This is worth remembering in our day when we seem to want quick solutions to complicated problems and instant gratification of our appetites and desires.
And finally, let us remember that in one sense this world is the garden, we are the growing plants, and God is the gardener. And as a loving caretaker over His creations, He will preserve us and protect us from destruction. We may face some dry days, chilling frosts or even long bleak winters in the course of our growth here, but He will not allow us to be overwhelmed by the elements if we rely on Him.
And so, as we face the storms of this life may we grow from them and may we be comforted and assured that the Lord watches over us. May we know we are not alone.
1 John Henry Newman, ” Apologia pro Vita Sau,” quoted in The International Thesaurus of Quotations, Rhoda Thomas Tripp, comp., Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1970, p 402
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May 01, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,802