“Grow”

Jesus told a story of a man who went out to clear the land. He uprooted gnarled old trees and chopped up rotting stumps. He put a shoulder to large boulders and pushed them to the fringe. Then, using a sharp blade for a plow yoked to an ox, he turned the soil to receive the seed. Slinging the seed bag over his head and across one shoulder, he broadcast kernels in wide arcing motions.

Some say the hardest part of the man’s work was over. But I disagree.

Moving through a list of tasks may be arduous, but checking off little boxes next to chores completed and errands run gives a certain satisfaction. After all, these are things we can do.

No, the hardest part is not the labor; the hardest part is the waiting.

The work is done. Now, will Life come?

In my own work, it is the equivalent of my hurrying out each morning in scruffy hair, an overcoat thrown over my nightshirt, slippers flapping, and lying down on the earth to spy some new sprout, some emerging blade of life!

And I have been known to strike the earth and cry out, "Grow!"

But no one can give Life—we can only give labor. And so I must . . . wait.

While we value so much the actual labor, I wonder if the art of patience—the art of trusting the Lifegiver to come and bless and give growth—isn’t more important than every action step on the project flow chart combined.

Having done what you or I can, we wait.

And we trust the Lifegiver to come.