Easter Sunday during our worship, the Holy Spirit took me on an excursion of truth that I would like to share as encouragement to you the reader. Have you ever gone to the garden center of any department store in the springtime and passed a rack of flower seed packets? When you look at the package it shows you an image of the flower the seed will produce. When you open the package, you do not find the mature flower but rather a plain seed with the promise of the image captured on the package. To possess the beauty of the flower, you must take certain actions and be patient over time for the maturity of the promised flower.
At the time we have a seed with the promise of a flower. We take certain actions of faith to see the promised flower manifest to its maturity. We are taught that a seed must be planted in dirt in an area with suitable sunlight. Then it must be watered and weeded for it to grow. We understand this process takes time. We would be foolish to wake up the next morning with the expectation of the flower to be in full bloom. So we wait and repeat the necessary actions until we see the first signs of its manifestation. After a period, the promised flower begins to provide evidence of its life. This is not a time to stop doing what is necessary to nurture the promise but to remain faithful in our administration of actions required for its maturity. If we abandon our responsibility of nurturing the promise and neglect the process, it will die.
There is a time of waiting and not seeing and then once we begin to see evidence, there is another phase of time that we must wait for its maturity. If we endure the process and continue applying the correct actions, we will eventually enjoy the promise the seed possesses. In this we are shown how the promises of God are meant to mature to their manifestation in our lives. We must learn to be patient with the process God has assigned for the maturity of His promises in our lives.
James 5:7 says, “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.” Like the seed of a flower, God’s word is the seed of His promise sown into the hearts of those who receive it by faith. 1Peter 1:23 says, “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” This seed is meant to be nurtured by actions of faith required for the life of the promise to manifest in our lives. These actions are simply obedience to God’s word of instruction so the promise of His word can manifest.
Like the natural seed that is sown into the ground takes time to manifest with the consistency of correct actions, so does God’s promises. Although we find the expectation of a natural seed to mature overnight to be foolish, we somehow develop an expectation for the seed of God’s promises to mature in such a way. Yet, James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
I have often found that the process of God in the lapse of time between the promise sown and its maturity is for the development of our own character so that it may have the capacity to obtain the maturity of His promise. Even when the Hebrew people were led out of Egypt to possess their promise, God led them the long way to develop in them the character required for the promise God had for them (Exodus 13:17-18). The encouragement here is to never grow weary in taking the necessary actions required for the manifestation of your promise to its maturity. Paul wrote in Galatians 6:9 “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”