Living our faith is like gardening. Trust God to grow the seeds

I like to buy several packets of mixed flower seeds and scatter them in my flower beds. I fertilize them, water them and - in time - watch the flowers come up.

I have so many different kinds of flowers that without my even noticing, there are some weeds that grow. Even a few uninvited maple tree seedlings show up.

The trouble is, I often can’t tell whether something is a weed, especially not at first. So, from time to time, I invite a neighbor or a friend who knows more about gardening to help me know what to pull out.

One person told me that it is just a matter of location. Morning Glories are beautiful in some places whereas a rose bush in the middle of my lawn would be in the wrong place and, likely, would need to be pulled out.

Nevertheless, I don’t want weeds in my flower beds — especially if they are going to choke my beautiful flowers. I recently learned about phone apps that allow us to take a photo of a flower or weed and then the app identifies them.

It occurs to me that living out our faith is like gardening. We scatter seeds of kindness, a smile, make a phone call, we help someone out, listen, give our perspective and share what has worked for us. We talk about our faith and what matters to us or we pray for them.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” Mark 4:26-27.

We don’t know how our actions will be received or what will come of them. But we trust that God may use what we do, and something may grow in time.

Jesus used many gardening images in his parables.

In Matthew 13:24-30 Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God as being like sowing good seed, but by night an enemy sowed weeds among the wheat. But Jesus allowed the wheat and the weeds to grow together until it was time for harvest, then it was easier to see one from the other.

In time, it becomes apparent to those who know how to judge, what is a weed and what isn’t.

Likewise, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge another, because God might be growing something that we don’t know how to identify.

Jesus also talked about extravagantly scattering seeds on different kinds of ground, regardless of the potential for success.

The parable is about good soil. I love the photos of a little flower growing in the crack of a rock or concrete. Of course, weeds get in there, too.

But now and then, a good seed will find enough soil to become a rare and beautiful flower in a supposedly wrong place.

I have seen a plant that continued to grow between the cracks on the inside of a church building for years. It would grow in the corner of the sanctuary. The church members would prune it now and then, and sometimes it would seem to die and then came back to life. The name of this congregation in Yakima was called Tree of Life Lutheran Church.

As we put our faith into action, we can scatter our good seeds and see what comes up. Often there are weeds in the mix.

We can water the plants and do all that we can, but we cannot grow the plant. It is all in God’s hands.

All we can do is watch and appreciate the beauty of the master gardener. The creator’s kingdom is filled with variety — colorful flowers, people and creatures of all kinds that bloom and grow in the most unlikely places.