I’ve seen lovely flowers sprouting from cracks in a trash-strewn, concrete sidewalk, and in fertilized soil, I’ve observed flowers blossom, wither and die.
A seed grows where a seed grows.
Likewise, over the years, I’ve shingled roofs with hardened men and sipped drinks with nobles. I’ve sweated on the field with men of questionable characters and talked theology in the book-strewn studies of revered scholars.
One thing I’ve learned is this: Where the seed of the Word of God will take root has nothing to do with the external appearance of the one who hears it.
A man living in a cardboard box can blaspheme God just as vociferously as a billionaire hedonist in a hilltop mansion. And a former Mexican mafia member can repent and believe in Jesus just as truly as a preacher’s kid can.
A seed grows where a seed grows.
Inside, we’re all pretty much the same. Desperate, confused, self-absorbed, dying people fumbling for hope in a world where down is up and up is down, and vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
But inside some—who they are and who they will be, God knows—I say, inside some a seed drops. The seed of the Gospel. One a mother, one a murderer. One a persecutor like Paul, one a centurion like Cornelius. One me, another you.
There, miracle of miracles, the seed takes root, grows, bears fruit. God makes it happen. God makes them part of his faithful community.
Ah, what a motley, hilarious, beautiful gathering the church is, where individuals with nothing in common but Jesus, sing and pray and confess together because Jesus makes us all common beneficiaries of his work.
A seed grows where a seed grows. Thank you, Jesus, for making that seed grow in the cracks of a sidewalk heart like my own.
A seed grows where a seed grows.
Keep planting that seed regardless!
Happy Sunday 🥂😄
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