Originally published Monday, 11 May 2015.
Outside my kitchen window a thick blanket of land has been stretched out. Last week, students and volunteers joined together to tuck potential just below the surface, planting hundreds of seeds on the 4 acres. We are calling it The Bridge Garden Training Project. It just so happens to be in my backyard.
So, every morning, I pour my coffee, and I look at the dirt. I squint my eyes and tell myself I see the green breaking through, ready to catch its first breath of sunlight that day. But, as of today, only a few sprouts have actually stood up high enough for me to see from my window.
Mostly, I’m just waiting.
I drink my coffee and go through my day and there is this frustratingly quiet voice that keeps pressing into my ears: “Wait. Just wait.”
Because it’s not about the garden after all.
It’s about the unknowns of the summer ministry plans, and parenting, and the emails I’m waiting on that determine some other decisions. It’s about the phone calls that haven’t come through, and the event that just needs to get behind me, and the meetings that need to happen.
It’s about my restless hands that want to make something just happen already.
Truth is, I’d love to paw away some of the dirt and confusion and just see for myself how those seeds are doing – the seeds of relationships, decisions, prayers prayed, plans pending.
So, I sip my coffee today and I ask God to keep my hands still and my heart quiet. To pry my fingers open and release the seeds that simply need to be laid down, relinquished to His control.
What about you, friend? Today, can you picture the fields of your life stretched out before your window? There are seeds planted there. Your hopes and goals and plans. Maybe some have sprouted and are growing tall and strong. But maybe there are a few rows that look endlessly empty, almost barren. It’s those rows that your eyes fall on each morning, and it’s those rows that cause you to question if there is something, anything will ever grow there.
But this is what we can’t forget, as we wring our hands in the waiting:
Life is there, just beneath the surface of time. And, the One who shook the earth’s foundation with His glorious resurrection-sprouting is at work in your field, in your heart, in your life. There is power in void places - a life-power that filled a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb. So, don’t hesitate over the barren rows. Today, we wait, expecting a birth of His beauty and purpose.
In time, my friend, we will see fulfillment.
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