I received a wonderful email from a woman who wrote, “Your mom was my first-grade teacher at Putnam City in 1958. She was a great teacher and very kind, but strict! She made us learn the 23rd Psalm and say it in front of the class, and I was horrified. But it was the only contact I had with the Bible until 1997 when I became a Christian. And the memories of Mrs. McCasland came flooding back as I re-read it.”
Jesus told a large crowd a parable about the farmer who sowed his seed that fell on different types of ground—a hard path, rocky ground, clumps of thorns, and good soil (Matt. 13:1–9). While some seeds never grew, “the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it” and “produces a crop yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (v. 23).
During the twenty years my mother taught first grade in public schools, along with reading, writing, and arithmetic she scattered seeds of kindness and the message of God’s love.
Her former student’s email concluded, “I have had other influences in my Christian walk later in life, of course. But my heart always returns to [Psalm 23] and [your mom's] gentle nature.”
A seed of God’s love sown today may produce a remarkable harvest.
We see the agricultural metaphor of “sowing seed” again in the book of 1 Corinthians. The apostle Paul taught the Corinthian believers for eighteen months (see Acts 18:1–11) and then Apollos watered the spiritual seed Paul had sown (Acts 18:27; 1 Cor. 3:4–9). Paul made it clear that those who spread the gospel are only God’s servants doing the work the Lord has assigned them to do (1 Cor. 3:5). While Paul planted the seed in the hearts of the Corinthian believers and Apollos watered it, it was God who made it grow.
At different times in our life we may be the one who is planting the message of God’s truth and love, and at other times we are the one who is watering. What’s important is that it is God who makes the seed grow.
As God’s worker, what seeds can you plant in someone’s life?
