Seeds of a Miracle!

 

Friday, October 23, 2015

“Therefore is anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; he old things passed away; behold new things have come” (2 Corinthians 54:17).

 Hey Gang:  His name was Sandy, he was twelve years old, violent, and his heart was filled with hatred.  He was locked away from society because he had taken his hatred out on several children smaller than he, and had vowed he would never change.  A question I have asked many times in my tenure of working with kids with broken lives:“ How Can That Happen Lord?”

 And then I found out!  Sandy became a project for me in the six weeks he was under my care.  I wanted to find out how a twelve-year-old child could be so filled with rage.  In my first conversations his responses were filled with curse words and venom about everybody that had crossed his path in his short tenure on this earth.  My prayer, in my time with Sandy, was a simple ”HELP Lord”. “Put your words in my mouth that will penetrate the shell that keeps this young lad in bondage.

 Sandy could tell me every time he had been beaten, every time he had been locked in his room for days at a time, every time his dad had come home drunk and beat he and his mother.  Each and every incident was filed away in the recesses of his brain. 

 Sandy taught me a tremendous lesson: if I was willing, he, too, was willing but I had to prove how deeply I was willing.  The night before Sandy was to be picked up by the bus that would deliver him to a facility where he would remain until his eighteenth birthday, we had our last time together. I saw in Sandy’s eyes something that I had not seen before.  A tear? No, but a softening of his eyes.  It was that night that Sandy taught me, “If I was willing” - God would work through me to plant a seed of hope in the life of a twelve year old who had not hope.

The Bible is filled with promises that God wants to give to his children.  Faith is the ingredient that puts these promises into action in our lives, and hope anticipates the fulfillment of His promises.  I also learned that I am not a harvester, but only a seed-planter; the salt that provides the savor of my planting is patience.  I learned that “Thy will be done” is not just so many words but a principle that give us the power to be a seed planter.

 Seeds were planted in those conversations with a twelve-year old who had no hope.  I left California shortly after my time with Sandy, so have no idea if my seed planting resulted in long term good fruit.  But this I know, seeds were planted and will be harvested when Father God says, this is the right moment. 

 Sooooo, my friends and neighbors, let me share a principle that became the backbone of everything I did, said, and taught to the thousands of children, who had little or no hope, and  passed through my life.  Paul gave us the principle when he wrote, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians6:7).

 Luke agreed with Paul and gave us the trigger for the principle when he wrote, “Give, and it will be given to you…that it is your standard of measure that will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).  Matthew said, it makes a difference where you sow, some seeds lands on thorny ground, some in rocky ground, some fell by the road side but some on good soil” (Matthew 13:3-9).  Matthew also said, “We are going to reap more than we sow” (Matthew. 13:8).    Good seeds – bad seeds!  You decide!

 Paul gives us the bottom line of the Seed Planting Principle, “if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly”   An old country preacher once said, “We choose whether we will be porch box sowers or sow in thousands of acres sowers.  Paul said, “Each must do just as he has purposed in his heart….for God loves cheerful giver”. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

 And now for the promise for those who understand and apply the principle “And God is able to make all grace about to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed” (2 Cor. 9:8). 

 Time to go and find someone I can plant a seed into.  Why don’t you come along?

 Blessings Gramps