As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. Colossians 1:10 The Message.

Last spring, my friend and her husband tried growing tomatoes. With anticipation they carefully planted the seeds and nurtured them…batch after batch. Not a single plant flourished or even survived. They would either sprout and quickly wilt, or get eaten by a small animal. It was the Parable of the Sower set in suburban Washington, DC. However, in their case not even a single tomato seed flourished!

Well after tomato season should have ended, my friend walked around to a part of the yard she rarely frequented. To her astonishment, there stood several enormous tomato bushes. Yes, covered with huge, ruby red, perfectly ripe tomatoes growing sheltered against the house!!! She ran to her husband, questioning if he had planted tomato seeds around the corner of the house. He denied it. They surmised that either the wind had blown the seeds, or animals had “moved” them.  Flabbergasted, they harvested this extraordinary, late season crop.

MY OWN STRENGTH

It’s the story of my life. How often do I work, work, work before I finally let go and get out of the way to allow God to do the work He has planned?  How often do I over-plan, over-water and then ask God to rubberstamp my plans? Shouldn’t I go to him first to ask what His plans are for me?  It seems the more I let go, the more God shows up.

I need to remember to leave room for the Holy Spirit to work, to not push myself to exhaustion but to trust in God’s glory-strength and not my own. I need to remember that he has already rescued us, and I do not need to keep planting tomatoes where they can’t grow. Conversely, when I let the harvester of our souls plant the crop, the harvest is always bountiful, and unexpected in its timing and its circumstances.

In the book of Colossians, Paul and Timothy tell us that they pray the Colossians “will have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.”  Colossians 1:9-14 The Message.