(6) I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. (7) Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow. (8) The one who plants and the one who waters work together, but each one will receive their own reward for their own labor. (9) We are God’s coworkers, and you are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:6-9 (CEB)
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another #shorts post.
Today’s short tidbit comes from Scripture; 1 Corinthians 3, same as the previous post.
If you’re a long-time Reader of my blog you may remember that I’ve written about gardening before. I’m not a professional gardener by any means but I plant things in my yard and have had varying levels of success growing different stuff. The process of growing plants often makes me think, and I’ve gained some valuable insights into life by considering the implications and significance of putting a plant in the ground and caring for it as it grows.
For more on that you can check out some of the other blog posts I’ve written on this. The oldest one, going back to 2020, is entitled Seeds of Wisdom. You can click that link and check it out. More recent posts on this topic are entitled Planted, not Buried, and Reasons for Rain. Check out those links if you’re interested.
Anyway, 1 Corinthians 3 also has a short message for us to consider about growing seeds.
Remember Who Does the Real Work
The simplest explanation of how to grow a plant in the garden consists of three steps: Plant the seed, water the seed (and also wait, this step involves a lot of waiting), and finally, harvest the plant or crop. There can definitely be other steps too, like adding fertilizer or pruning the weak branches so the strong ones can flourish. But those are advanced steps. For our purposes today, we’re only concerned with the three steps: Plant the seed, water the seed (and wait), harvest the plant.
These three steps make up (in general) the part we have to play in all this. But are these three things the reason the plant grows?? In other words, are we the ones who actually make it grow??
What do you think makes the plant grow?? Is it our watering?? Or the fertilizer we put down?? No, none of these things make the plant grow. The only reason the plant grows is because God makes it grow. We plant the seed in the ground, and we water it. But it only grows because God makes it grow. Planting is a cooperative activity, a team activity we do together with God. We most certainly have a part to play, but we are not the ones who make anything grow. It doesn’t depend on us; the most important process depends entirely on God.
Paul reminds us/teaches us this in 1 Corinthians 3:6-9.
(6) I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. (7) Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow. (8) The one who plants and the one who waters work together, but each one will receive their own reward for their own labor. (9) We are God’s coworkers, and you are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:6-9 (CEB)
I’ve said this before in the other posts I’ve written about gardening. But it bears repeating many many many times, because it’s important for us to always remember that God is the one who makes the seeds in our lives grow, not us. And all this planting is a team activity.
We can easily fall into the sin of self-sufficiency; trying to do everything in our life by our own efforts. And I can tell you personally that sometimes when I fall into this sin, it isn’t motivated by a desire to be self-sufficient. Sometimes for me it’s motivated by “not wanting to bother God” with every little thing. But when I have that mistaken attitude my seeds don’t prosper, because if we want to grow seeds we need to have God involved in them. We are not the ones who make things grow; only God can do that.
So let’s all remember that, and once again invite God to join us in our mission to water and grow the seeds we’ve planted in various parts of our lives. They may be seeds of projects, hobbies, ministries, relationships, and many other things. The projects and relationships—the seeds—that we want prospering in our lives, whatever those are we need to make sure we’re growing those seeds as a team activity with God. We need to invite Him into the process, and let Him do what He does.
Because He is the only one who can make our seeds grow. We have work to do, we have a part to play. But only He can make them grow.
That’s it for #shorts #11. Stay tuned for more #shorts all this month.
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Until next time, be strong and do good!
Your new best friend in Christ,
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