I seem to vaguely remember this old nursery rhyme from when I was a kid.
It went like this: "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden
grow?" If you asked our granddaughters that question, they'd probably say,
"Real slow!" Maybe. that's why Mary was so contrary. Last spring, the
girls worked with their Mom to clear a little area in the yard where they
could have a vegetable garden. And they were all excited about planting
those seeds in the ground: tomato seeds, green beans, carrots, and
lettuce. They went out the next day to look at what they had planted.
Nothing. They checked the next week, and the next week, and the week after
that. They watered the garden when it didn't rain. They pulled up weeds.
For the longest time, they went out to that garden to see what was
happening and nothing was happening or so it looked. Had they tried to
dig up the seeds to see if anything was happening, they would have ruined
everything. But you know the story. It finally happened: The tomatoes and
beans and carrots and lettuce. It just took a little while.
Something had been happening all along to those seeds. Just because you
can't see what God is doing doesn't mean He's not doing anything! In fact,
that may be something important for you to remember right now. You've been
praying about that need, that situation, that person for a long time and
it looks like nothing's happening. Key words: looks like. When a seed's
been planted, it looks like there's nothing going on for some time until
that plant breaks through and ultimately produces some wonderful fruit.
When a new life has begun in a woman's body, it doesn't look like
anything's happened for quite a while. But every day, that life is growing
where we cannot see it grow. Until it first reshapes that mother's body
and ultimately appears as that precious little baby being born.
The problem is that when it looks like nothing's happening, we tend to
say, "Well then, I've got to do something!" And most often, it's the wrong
thing; like digging up the seed to see if it's growing or plowing up the
garden because it looks like nothing's happening. In I Samuel 13,
beginning with verse 7, our word for today from the Word of God, we have
got a sobering example of how much we have to lose when we can't wait for
God to do It HIS way. Saul, Israel's first king, has been told by God's
man Samuel, "Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you
to sacrifice burnt offerings ... but you must wait seven days until I come
to you and tell you what you are to do."
With the Philistine forces massing against them, the Bible says, "Saul
remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He
waited seven days, the time set by Samuel, but Saul did not come to
Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter." Saul panicked, and he did what
no king was allowed by God to do: he offered the burnt offering himself
and he crossed a sacred line. And "just as he finished making the
offering, (the Bible says) Samuel arrived." And Samuel asks, "What have
you done?" Saul answers by talking about what "I saw" ... "I thought" ...
"I felt." Samuel says, "You acted foolishly. You have not kept the command
the Lord your God gave you ... now your kingdom will not endure."
Saul forfeits the major legacy of his life because of disobedience that
disqualified him; a disobedience that came because he couldn't wait for
God to do it His way. You and I are so prone to making that same kind of
mistake. Nothing seems to be happening, things are starting to fall apart,
and it looks like we're at the point of no return. So we take matters into
our own hands and, in so doing, we ruin what God was going to do.
God is so often the God of the eleventh hour. He waits until the moment
when everyone will know it had to be Him. He waits so our faith can
stretch farther than its ever stretched before so He can do greater things
for us than He's ever done before.
God is working in ways we can't see, so ultimately something beautiful
will be born for all to see. So, as the Psalmist says: "Commit your way to
the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this ... be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for Him" (Psalm 37:5, 7). Sounds like something we
know, we know we know, we bet our lives we know but rarely act like we
know. Uhmmm.
See you in Church,
Chuck
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