COLUMN: Make sure to grow your seed of faith

With spring here people all around are tilling up little plots and planting gardens.  I have enough trouble growing grass, so a garden is clearly beyond me!  But it amazes me to watch people planting seeds for tomatoes and cucumbers, for peppers and corn and beans and peas and whatever else they would like to raise.
Now generally I can’t tell one seed from another, I mean I guess a pea looks like a pea and corn is corn right?  But I don’t know if I could tell the difference between a tomato seed a cucumber seed or a pepper seed.  The point is that what they start out as and what you end up with are amazingly different.
In the Bible, Jesus talks about seeds in several places.  But he makes particular mention of mustard seed in a couple of places.  In Matthew 13:31-32 he talks about how that tiny seed becomes a tree large enough for birds to perch in. In another place he talks about our faith as a mustard seed, saying, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt 17:20 NIV)
Little things can make a big difference.  Some people feel like they don’t have much faith, but faith, like a seed, when watered and fed, it grows.  And, just as we start our walk of faith from different places, our faith grows in different ways.  For example some grew up in church, some grew up without the church, some of us had great families, some not so great.  In the same way our faith works itself out in our lives in different ways.
God in His wisdom has not raised a garden with just corn, or a church with just preachers! We each come to Him from different places, from different families, in different circumstances.  From those different beginnings, those different seeds, God creates a rich harvest of gifts, traits and talents that He uses to bless our Churches and our community.
May your faith grow and blossom.  May God reveal to you your gifts and your talents.  May the Lord show you how to serve His Church and His Kingdom.  May your seed grow of faith grow into a mighty tree!