Who Makes Everything Grow?

When a farmer sows seeds, he is not the one who makes the seeds grow into various crops or fruits. Once he plants the seeds and waters them, the seeds start to sprout. And it forms stems and branches. And later they bear fruits on the branches.

In this process, what the farmer does is just planting the seeds and watering them. Once the seeds are planted, it is God who takes up the work and makes the seeds grow. At the time of the harvest, the farmer gathers them and enjoys the fruits.

We do not know how much harvest the farmer will gather from the seeds. Nor can we know or control the process how the seeds grow into fruits and crops. All these things belong to God.

1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.

What makes everything possible is God. Through the parable of a farmer sowing seeds, God is teaching about the gospel work. The seeds are the words of God. When we preach the gospel, we do not know what will happen to the seeds.

What kind of soil will fall into? How will be the weather for the seed to grow? How much harvest will the seeds produce later? Through what process will the seeds grow into fruits?

We have no idea about these things. We are given the seeds and commanded to sow them on the field. If we obey God and plant them, God will make the seeds grow into a good harvest.

Mark 4:20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.

God already promised us abundant harvest. Let us have faith in God and sow the seeds by preaching the gospel in season or out of season. Then God will make them grow and we can have good harvest in the end.