05 Oct For All The Seeds You Didn’t Know You Were Sowing

Some time last November, after the leaves had all fallen from the trees and the air seemed to hint of the coming winter, I stood on my front porch and looked carefully at two pumpkins.

When we purchased them from a local farm the previous month they were jolly and smooth, a lovely orange. Now it was evident that they were past their prime and, in fact, were beginning to rot.

I haphazardly picked up the two squashes and tossed them into our overgrown garden bed, creating an impromptu compost pile. Well, I thought, maybe they will help prepare our soil for the spring.

As is often the case with choices made in haste, I completely forgot about the pumpkins. Then one hot day in August my second daughter came running to me excitedly, “Mom! There is a pumpkin growing in our garden!” “What?!,” I said. “How can that be? We didn’t plant any pumpkins.“

I went to investigate the matter only to discover this oddity: I had intentionally planted zucchini and yellow squash and instead had grown a pumpkin. The whole thing was so funny to me, I posted a photo on Facebook and said “Go figure – plant one thing, grow another..“

One of my friends made this comment, “Did you compost any pumpkins in your garden this year?” Ahhhh, now I remembered! Yes! I had! Then my mind started ruminating on this thought:

But they weren’t really planted. I just threw them in the garden.

A Voice I have come to know dearly whispered quietly to me in the moment: “Ahh, but they were planted. And every seed has growing potential, whether planted intentionally or tossed haphazardly. Any seed can grow if it takes root in good soil.”

Surprising Fruit from Scattered Seeds

The truth of my little parable is this: we don’t get to decide which of our seeds will take root, bloom, and yield a harvest. The harvest is never in our hands, but the seeds always are.

Like my rotten pumpkins, sometimes we don’t count our seeds as significant. Sometimes, perhaps, we don’t even recognize them to be seeds. But then we see fruit: walking around, talking, living-proof fruit of a seed we didn’t even know that we had sown.

You were just being yourself – going about your day and tossing an off-handed remark here or comment there. You didn’t know they were listening.

You didn’t know they grabbed the words, swallowed them whole, and something incredible was planted in their souls as a result.

You didn’t know you were being watched when you had that really hard day and you left on the worship music in the kitchen. And the tears streamed down and the arms raised up as you surrendered to His will.

You thought you were alone in that moment, until one night under the summer sky you looked out into the yard and saw them dancing with arms raised high, singing your song of surrender. And you were surprised when you recognized they were catching more than just fireflies.

And the hundred times you drove by an accident on the side of the road and led them in a prayer for the people involved, you didn’t know that your three year old was paying attention. Until one day you drove by an accident and forgot to say anything and a little voice from the back seat said, “Momma, we need to pray for the people in the accident over there.”

And once again you are surprised – and in awe of how this seed-sowing principle works.

Every Seed Has Growing Potential

There are plenty of seeds we know that we have and plant them quite intentionally. I want carrots; I plant carrots; I get carrots. I want my daughter to learn her multiplication tables; I teach her the multiplication tables; she learns the multiplication tables.

But seed-sowing and growing isn’t always that predicable. Like everything that lives and grows in this world, there is an element of mystery. As 1 Corinthians 3:7 says, “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth“.

While we aren’t always aware of the seeds we are sowing, we can be sure of this – if Christ is alive in our hearts and we are clinging to Him, good fruit will surely come as a result: “Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.”(Ephesians 3:17)

Plant your roots in good soil and you will have no need to fear what will come of your seeds.

In fact, there will be days you will stand transfixed with amazement at a tree that grew from words you don’t remember saying, prayers you don’t remember praying, acts of kindness you had long forgotten.