By Mary Capalbo
Every year in the early spring, once the last frost has come and gone, a longing for new growth and fresh beauty fills my soul. At the first opportunity I get, I jump in the car and head to our nearby nursery. For an hour or two I meander the pathways between petunias, marigolds and snapdragons. I try to recall which ones are hearty enough to make it to the early Fall days, which colors look best together and wishing once again I had remembered to count my flower pots before leaving the house! The remainder of the day is spent on the patio knee deep in soil and fertilizer as I gently loosen the roots and place these new flowering beauties in their perspective pots. Once all the blooms have a new home, all that’s left to do is watch them stretch out and hopefully flourish for the next five months (if I can remember to water them!).
I tell you this so that you can better understand the surprise I felt a few weeks ago when I saw an imposter sprouting up in one of my pots. I knew I hadn’t planted this little guy back in May. I usually monitor the weeds masquerading as flowers and pull them out whenever I see them, but this one caused me to pause a moment. It didn’t look like the usual grass or clover sprout, so I left it. I let it continue to grow for a week or two just to see what had taken residence in one of the pots. It wasn’t long before I could see a bud forming and a day or two later it was clear that sunflowers had taken root! I can’t look out onto our deck now and not smile when I see these two strong and tall yellow blooms lifting their faces to the heavens and looking so at home.
This whole experience caused me to pause and wonder how those sunflower seeds got there in the first place. I do have bird feeders hanging nearby, so I wasn’t surprised by the type of seed, I was more perplexed in regards to who planted it there. I like to think it was one of our many little chipmunks who scamper about, dodging in and out of the cracks and crevices. Maybe that little critter was just stowing away food for the winter, or maybe he saw the potential beauty that lay within that little seed, and with some digging and placing of it beneath the soft soil, he gave it an opportunity to grow.
All throughout scripture God uses nature to help us better understand His character and how He calls us to live our lives. I believe that the Lord was using these beautiful surprise sunflowers to remind me of the importance of going, and of planting seeds for His kingdom. In 1st Corinthians, Paul is talking to the church about this same truth when He says,
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.”
God has entrusted to us the job of sowing seeds, but He is the one who brings about growth. Another way to put it is that God calls us to share the Good News of the Gospel with those He has placed around us, but only His Spirit can convict and turn hearts to Himself. So what does this look like in our day to day lives? Do we need to sell all our possessions, jump on a plane and head to another country as a foreign missionary? If God calls you to do so, then yes. But for most of us, it may actually just be to open our eyes and ears, and then take action and speak up when we feel the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
Take a moment right now and see if you can remember that first time when someone saw you, listened to you, helped you and shared God’s love with you. Maybe it was years ago in a Sunday School class, or maybe it was a friend in college. Maybe there is a long line of different individuals throughout the past few decades that the Lord placed in your path to speak truth to you. He used them to soften your heart and lead you into a personal relationship with Himself. I’m not sure what your story is, but I do know that if you claim to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you can probably think of a few individuals who helped guide you along the way.
Each of those people were given an opportunity to see you, listen to you, and then they responded to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to care for you in tangible ways while sharing Christ’s love with you. God calls us to do the same. He calls us to live with an eternal perspective that causes us to pause and remember why we are alive, and what our purpose is while we are here on earth. We read the following in the book of James,
“yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
A mist. That’s how James portrays our life here on earth. Some have described it as the dash between the year you were born and the year you die. What I’m getting at is that this life is not our own, and time is not slowing down. So let’s take a minute to regain that eternal perspective and remember the greater purpose we were called to live out.
A few Sundays ago, Pastor Aaron shared the following quote from a book by John Piper called, “Don’t Waste Your Life”
“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.”
What is mastering you? What is the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing before you fall asleep at night? What drives you and motivates you through the hard and difficult days? In 2nd Corinthians, Paul uses these words to describe those who have placed their faith in Christ,
“...we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Ambassadors. God has called us to represent His Kingdom here on earth. This is not our home, but while here He has entrusted to us His message of love and forgiveness to be shared with all of mankind. That is our purpose, that is what I long to be the mission of my life. God has you exactly where you are for a reason. It may not be where you want to be, and you may be struggling to see the purpose behind your circumstances, but let’s not waste a moment. There are people that you encounter everyday. They may be family members, coworkers, classmates, teachers, doctors, friends, crossing guards or neighbors. Each one of these individuals is made in God’s image and loved by their Creator.
So together let’s open our eyes to who is around us, let’s listen to them and then in the power of the Holy Spirit, let’s serve them and share the hope that we have in Jesus. Let’s share the good news that was once so lovingly shared with us. Plant the seeds and trust in the one who makes things grow. We may never see the growth that’s happening beneath the soil, but let’s faithfully sow anyway and anticipate being surprised by the sunflowers that bloom in the most unexpected places.