An Act of Faith

It's planting season here in Nebraska. The drive from our house to town is 15 miles one way, and about 11 of those are on gravel roads, so we play a lot of Name That Farm Implement this time of year. My 4-year-old Noah (he's around 2 in this pic) is waaaay better at that game than I am...but then again, at least I'm better than I was when we moved here six years ago!

As I watched the tractors maneuver their huge planters around the fields the other day, I was thinking about how much farming has changed over the years. Granted, my agricultural knowledge is still fairly basic, but even I can see that advances in technology and science have made farming a vastly different enterprise than it was just a generation or two ago.

Then my train of thought meandered even farther back. (Did I mention the drive is 15 miles? Each way? There's only so many times a person can listen to the Frozen soundtrack.) The opening line of the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 came to mind: "A sower went out to sow..." In Jesus' time, there weren't any GPS-guided tractors depositing genetically-engineered seeds in precise rows...just a guy tossing handfuls of grain on the ground. Some went to waste when it fell on the path or the rocks, or the weeds choked it out. But the seed that landed on good soil bore fruit many times over.

Two thousand years ago, planting was an act of faith accompanied by a hell of a lot of hard work. But is it really all that different today? Sure, the mechanics have changed, but we still have no control over the weather (I'm guessing the sower would have been a big fan of crop insurance.) Farmers invest their time, energy, and resources into their enterprise, and then pray like crazy that it's not all for nothing.

Sometimes being a parent feels a lot like farming. You are a Grower of Children, forever planting seeds without knowing when, if, or how they will come to fruition. You read your kids books every night, sneak some broccoli into their mac 'n cheese, pew-wrestle with a wiggly toddler or two for an hour every Sunday, and then sometimes you can’t help wondering, is this really worth it?

But the thing is, we know our kids are Good Soil, right? After all, they aren't just bits and pieces of us--God made them, too. It shouldn't be such a surprise when out of the blue one day, your bedtime bookworm sounds out a sentence on the back of a cereal box. Or your little squirmer starts singing the Alleluia after worship one Sunday (or in Noah's case, "Lamb of God, you take away the songs of the circus"...whatever. Close enough.). Maybe someday they will actually ask for the broccoli...stranger things have happened.

Parenting is an act of faith accompanied by a hell of a lot of hard work. And there are many other Growers of Children--teachers, aunts and uncles, child care providers, pastors, coaches...the list is long--who may or may not be parents themselves, but are planting and nurturing and praying right alongside them.

Listen up, oh ye weary Growers of Children. I've got some Good News for you. Jesus says, "But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields" (Matthew 13:23).

Our little ones are Good Soil. We're doing our best, and God's working on them, too. Someday, those seeds will blossom. And when that day comes, I can guarantee you'll never see anything more beautiful.

"So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9