Growing Success

Growing petunias from seed to flower is a renewed experience for me. I used to grow lots of flowers for our tiny council house garden in Bolton.
But for years, I didn't get round to it.
For assorted reasons, I decided to have a go again this year. Sowing seeds, watching seedlings emerge, remembering to water them, then the fiddly job of transplanting them into bigger pots and so on - and all the while taking steps to ensure that once outside, the slugs wouldn't get them.
But at last, some flowers are about to show their lovely colours! How amazing that those tiny seeds, which look like dust, should produce something so beautiful.
St. Paul reflects on a different sort of Growing Success, when writing to his troubled friends in Corinth, who mistakenly focused on God's human servants.
'I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.' (1 Corinthians 3.6-9)
Paul makes two important points.
First, all growth comes from God Himself, who alone can generate the changes in people's lives.
The second is that while the human agents are less significant, it is nonetheless essential that sowing and watering takes place, otherwise there can be nothing for God to grow. God has made Himself dependent on human agents
At St. Andrew's, we have wonderful opportunities to be partners with God's great growth plans. But all of us have responsibilities to do what we can, in partnership with the Lord of the Harvest, to play our part, whatever that is.
What part are you playing? Are you praying that there may be God-given growth?
Best wishes,
Richard