They Do Not Know How

Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A person scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether they sleep or get up, the seed sprouts and grows, though they do not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, they put the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” - Mark 4:26-29

The farmer has to do some work here for the harvest - both the sowing and the reaping. Weeks of planning and prepping and then long days of planting or reaping. It’s a lot of work. And our spiritual growth is a lot of work - sometimes the days are long, so to speak, because there’s so much we need to do to prep our soil or plant the seed.

But my favorite phrase in this little parable is this: “they do not know how.” There’s something about setting the conditions well that allows the soil to produce the grain in stages until it’s totally mature. That’s because God does the real work of growing.

It strikes me that the key ingredients of setting up the conditions for soul-growth are these: humility and curiosity, openness and desire, love and patience. Those, and perhaps a few others, seem to make all the difference in setting up the soil of our hearts so that we just grow even though we might now know how.

Are there ways God’s been growing you these days? What are some of the conditions that may have led to that growth?