By Kimberly Davidson
“I’m doing everything right, but I’m still not [fill in the blank]. What’s going on?”
At one time or another, all of us have been in this predicament … I’m still not passing the course … I’m still not losing weight … I’m still not thinking straight … I’m still not avoiding temptation … Ever feel, as a follower of Jesus, I’m still not acting like my new self; a new creation? I confess, I talk to Jesus about this a lot.
We live in a culture of impatience and instant gratification. For me, waiting a whole week for a delivery seems like an eternity as I’ve become accustomed to the immediate satisfaction afforded by technology. Likewise, we want personal transformation to happen now.
Think out of the box with me for a moment, “What would you choose to be—a mighty oak tree or a squash?” If you said an oak tree, let me remind you that it takes 100 years to grow an expansive oak; while it only takes 6 months to grow a puny squash. You get my point.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus knew most of the people would never produce fruit (or an oak tree) from changed lives because the Word He was teaching them was like seed falling into poor soil (read Mark 4: 1-13). The parable tells of seeds that were erratically scattered, some falling on the road and consequently eaten by birds, some falling on rock and consequently unable to take root, and some falling on thorns, which choked the seed and the worms ate them. According to the parable, only the seeds that fell on good soil germinated producing a crop thirty, sixty, or even a hundredfold of what had been sown. Jesus’s point: The seed represents God’s Word (Luke 8:11). The sower is us, empowered by the Holy Spirit to sow God’s Word. The soil is the human heart. Our heart must be prepared to receive the seed before it can take root and produce a harvest.
When it comes to maturity—spiritual, relational and emotional—we can’t microwave it. It takes time, lots of time. Like a crock-pot, God simmers us on low heat for a long time. It’s taken me 16 dedicated years of following Jesus to get to this point in my life, and He’s not near done with me—or you. It’s important to remember how beneficial patience can be, because the best things in life, and in God’s Kingdom, are more than a click away.
