Spring is finally here.  Jonquils are blooming, tulips are pushing up through the ground, birds are singing—you know how beautiful it is when they sing in the spring, and I’m going to have to mow my grass this weekend.  I don’t mind though, it’s been a long, long winter and I’m so ready to be outdoors.

My wife, Barbara, is an Iowa farm girl.  She loves to get her hands in the dirt and plant things.  During the warm months we enjoy eating tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, blackberries, green peppers, garlic, green beans, peas, and several herbs from our garden.  She plants—I pick. 

What amazes me about our garden is that she plants little tiny seeds.  She covers them with dirt and waters, waters, waters.  Out of small tiny seeds comes produce, produce, and produce.  Have you ever really thought about how that happens?

I love popcorn.  There are very few nights when I don’t pop it the old fashioned way.  I was reading about popcorn a few days ago.  Packed inside that hard kernel is everything that’s needed to grow corn including water.  When the heat’s applied, it turns the water into steam, the steam expands, the skin splits with a small explosion and there’s my popcorn.  How cool is that?

I see the same principle at work in spreading the Word.  A seed is planted through a few words, God buries it in the soil of the heart, someone waters, God may allow a little pressure and stress into the mixture, and then He harvests.

Planting the seeds in a garden is the beginning.  The seeds have to be watered until they produce a shoot that breaks the ground.  Then they have to be nurtured and protected until they mature.  After that comes the harvest.  It’s a beautiful picture of growth.

Therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly [is] great, but the labourers [are] few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.  Luke 10:2 (kjv).