Seed Starters

By C.C. Owens

Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both. –Ecclesiastes 11:6 (NLT)

I love plants. In the summer, I like going into the garden to pick vegetables for dinner or pull an apple for a snack. It’s wonderful to see food grow from such tiny little seeds. But plants can also be frustrating things.

Those seeds take time to develop roots. A lot happens under the soil before the first green leaf is seen. It takes even longer for blooms to develop and food to come. Perhaps that’s why God tells us to do many activities, not just one. He doesn’t want us to get frustrated while we wait.

Now, I’ve been talking about seeds in a garden, but we can also plant seeds by learning new things. Maybe our seed planting is learning to play the violin or studying a language or trying a new sport. Just like plants, learning a new skill takes time to show results. If all we did was that one thing, we might give up before any benefits could be seen. But, if we keep busy with other activities – schoolwork, chores, and different areas of interest – our “seeds” have time to grow.

What seeds are you planting? Are you trying other activities too? Give your work time to develop and blossom.