Farmers live with a kind of holy uncertainty. They work hard, prepare the soil, plant the seed, and then step back into a mystery they cannot control. They cannot command the rain. They cannot hurry the sun. They cannot peer beneath the soil to see what is happening. They simply sow and trust that life will do what God designed it to do.

Those who share God’s Word live with the same uncertainty. You preach, teach, visit, listen, counsel, pray, study, and prepare. Yet there are seasons when the results seem hidden. A sermon is preached and the room looks unchanged. A conversation is had and the outcome is unclear. You scatter the Word, but you cannot see what is happening beneath the surface of a human heart.

Scripture reminds us that this uncertainty is not a flaw in the process. It is built into it. Paul wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Ecclesiastes adds, “Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper” (Ecclesiastes 11:6).

Notice Jesus’ wording in Luke 8:11: “The seed is the word of God.” Not seeds. Seed. The life and power are already inside the message itself. The kingdom does not depend on the brilliance of the sower. God has already placed life inside His Word.

Which means the sower can relax his grip a little. The heavy lifting belongs to God.

Our mandate is simple. Keep sowing. Scatter the Word widely. Trust that somewhere, in some unseen place, God is already bringing life out of the soil.

Paul N. Merideth

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