EMERGE! ‘Bloom Where You Are Planted’
A Season to Plant: For the Birds
March 23rd, 2022
Luke 8:15, ‘The seed that fell into good, fertile soil represents those lovers of truth who hear it deep within their hearts. They respond by clinging to the Word, keeping it clear as they endure all things in faith. This is the seed that will one day bear much fruit in their lives.’ (TPT)
Have you ever wondered how flowers and plants, as well as weeds multiply so rapidly, making new fields and gardens where last year there were none? I have perennials and vines, and I also have many undesirable bushes and trees and what-have-you, which spread year after year; sometimes even on a completely opposite side of the yard or house. Mint for one thing is as fertile as rabbits, I think, because once-upon-a time I only had a mint plant or two. We all remarked how cool it was to be able to have mint tea anytime we wanted. By the next summer I had mint multiplying in places I didn’t think a plant could grow, and it wasn’t too many summers before I felt like the mint had taken over my property. It was the same with this awesome traveling vine. One year it sprang up on the other side of the house from where its mate began several years before, crawling its lazy way up the stucco.
So how does that happen we all might wonder. Life is all about germination and pollination so that life sustains and continues, even down to the tiny seed found in a flower or a weed. Conception and fertilization occur and things grow. But how do they grow someplace other than where they were planted? True, winds carry the seeds and distribute them, but one of the biggest partners in this process are birds.
Birds are seed-snatchers. Have you ever planted grass seed in your yard and wondered why in the world it never sprouted? Perhaps you rototilled your soil and fertilized it an extra time and still had no return. Frustrated, you determined you didn’t have good ground to grow grass in, and instead, began researching the process and cost of laying sod. It is quite likely that it had nothing to do with the quality of your dirt and everything to do with the little varmints that dipped down out of the sky and stole your seed, eating on the fly, transporting and distributing it elsewhere while seedlings fell as they flew.
Do you know that the enemy is also a seed-snatcher? Every word that the Lord allows to fall on your heart, fertilized with His deep desire for it to bury itself in fertile soil to be nurtured and sprout, grow and multiply, is being spied upon by the enemy of your soul and mine. He is waiting to snatch the seeds the Lord desires to be planted. His thrust is for you to give up, to walk away, determining within yourself you won’t ever be good enough or lovely enough or sought after enough by Jesus; thus, he snatches the seeds a Holy God wanted to plant in you.
What do you do? Well, it’s quite like planting any kind of seed, even grass seed. Once the seed falls on fertile ground, bury it, water it, watch over it, feed it with Sonshine and other such things which cause those seeds to grow best. And when it has cultivated and grown, bloomed and flourished, share it, give it away so someone else may have the same growing season as you.
One of the greatest things you and I can ever do is BLOOM where we are PLANTED. Beautiful things grow from the fertile soil of a willing heart.
