Mark 4:26-29
This past weekend was Mother’s Day. I was planning to go home and surprise my mom, but I didn’t get to go. I had so much to do over the weekend to prepare for this weekend at my church that I couldn’t give up the 6 hours each way to drive to North Carolina. I just wouldn’t have gotten it all done.
Despite not spending time with her on Sunday, I thought a lot about her and the time we did have together when I lived at home. I haven’t always gotten along with my mom. As a kid, I guess I could say I was a brat, but I didn’t always see things how my mom saw things. For instance, she would see how to make things safe, while I would see how I could make things dangerous. She would see how to save money, and I would see how I could spend money.
Spending money is something I did and do quite well. Well enough that my parents put me to work riding a lawn mower as a kid so they could justify giving me an allowance. I hated cutting grass because it was dirty, smelly, and I would have to be out in the sun on those hot days! Well, since I didn’t like mowing the lawn, I didn’t always pay attention when I was doing it. One particular time, I ran over this Weeping Cherry Tree in the front yard and cut it completely off at the ground.
I’ll never forget my parents yelling at me for killing their tree! It only looked like a little stick in the ground, but in my carelessness I had killed it. Or so I thought. My parents were going to let me watch it die, but by the time we remembered that it was supposed to be dead, we realized that it had grown larger than it originally was when I chopped it off. When we least expected it, the tree had grown and even had branches.
As I was reading in Mark, I realized that Jesus was saying that the Kingdom of God is exactly like that. We won’t really understand it all, but in the midst of our doing other things, the Kingdom of God is growing. What’s the Kingdom of God? It is the eternal rule of God (Psalm 103:19 and Daniel 4:3).
Jesus doesn’t talk about Weeping Cherry Trees, but He does talk about plants. He says that the Kingdom of God is like seeds thrown on the grown. We go to bed, and when we wake up, it has grown.
I don’t know how you feel about knowing that God’s Kingdom is growing, but it makes me pretty ecstatic! Simply put, when God is ruling, there is nothing to fear. I hate to say I fear stuff, but the reality is I do. I fear not being in God’s will, growing old, bad decisions, death of my parents, etc. but, if God is ruling in my life (Scholars call this concept the sovereignty of God) then God is in control of my life. This means I don’t have to worry about anything. When God is in control, He turns the bad into good, my wailing into dancing, my sorrows into praise, and my fears into worship.
When God is in control, He can take a Weeping Cherry Tree that I cut off at the ground, and make it the prettiest tree in the yard.