Sowing Seed

I have had many people over the last 25+ years in some way or another ask this question in different ways when it comes to various ministries or outreach events..."Why do we do all of this work for so little results?" That has been asked by many people at the six churches I have served at over the years. It is the mindset of what's the use? I will now share with you a story from many years ago and one that came to me yesterday.
When I was in high school and in college, I had a lawn/landscaping business. Around March of every year, I would canvass neighborhoods with hundreds of flyers trying to build up my business. I would almost immediately start getting calls and very soon my schedule was full and there was no need to seek anymore clients so I would stop passing out the flyers.
The strangest thing happened though almost every year around August, I would begin to get phone calls just out of the blue asking me to cut their grass or do some landscaping jobs. I began to ask these people who had called me, how did they get my info and almost all of them would say, you gave us a flyer back in March. I wondered why did they wait so long to call then I finally began to ask and the answers I received were life changing. Their responses on why now all of a sudden they decided to call upon my services after many months of having or knowing my info was basically that they didn't need me at the time. So why was August the big month for all of these to call? Well that is the peak of the Summer heat in Texas. People who had once did all of their own yard work now are getting wore down and tired and looking for some help. They would go to that kitchen drawer or look behind their refrigerator magnet and grab that flyer of mine. You see I gave them my info and when they needed me, they gave me a call.
Every year at our church we do some pretty big outreach events. They cost a lot of money and require a lot of planning, volunteers and time. They are well worth it because of the lives that have been changed as the Gospel of Christ has been presented. Some have asked here at my church that same question I proposed to you earlier, why do we do all of this? I knew the answer but God showed it to me once again yesterday as I was outside the church.
This past July we hosted our annual Freedom Celebration. We had, I'm thinking about 1200 people here. One of the things we served was watermelon. As I was outside by our volleyball court yesterday, I noticed something so I went to look. What I found was a watermelon vine and four watermelons growing in our sand volleyball court. What had happened was one of our guest must have ate watermelon there, spit out a seed or two and now three months later we have watermelons. This person planted the seed, that is all that they did. The summer rains did their part and now we have fruit. What a great lesson these stories are for us all.
It is our job to plant the seed, nothing more and nothing less. It is God who does His part in seeing the fruit come to pass. For my lawn service, I gave them a flyer and when the time came, when things got "heated" they gave me a call. When our church reaches out and loves on people via a firework show, Christmas dinner, school back packs or whatever, we are just planting seeds that one day when things get heated or rough in their lives that they will remember a country church that loved on them and their family because all we did was plant a seed and leave the rest up to God.
I love what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:6...I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. The lesson for us all...sow that seed regardless of what people think or say because we never know what might just sprout up when we least expect it!
Consider Your Ways...Pastor John

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