I Corinthians 3:6-9 (NKJV) I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.
While having breakfast with a friend last week, he made a statement that has been resonating with me ever since. He said, “you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can’t count the apples in a seed.” What a profound truth.
It got me thinking about my responsibility in working to the growth of God’s orchard. Every apple tree came from a seed, that came from an apple, that came from another tree, that started as a seed from another apple.
I was an apple seed from a mature fruit bearing tree. Many apples were ripened, dropped, and their seeds dispersed without production. Fortunately, it just takes one and God wouldn’t give up on me. He had the right seed picked out, the ground necessary for it to land and the time chosen for proper germination. You could count the seeds in the apple from which my new life sprang, but you or I can’t count the apples that will come from the seed that was planted.
As we grow into mature fruit bearing trees, we are expected to cast our seeds to the ground in hopes that they too find fertile soil, take root and continue the cycle. Our lives will cycle through seasons, God expecting us to bear more fruit and disperse yet more seeds.
We don’t know how many apples are in each one of the seeds that we produce. Our duty is to produce them and disperse them, with the faith and understanding that God will bring up the ones that He chooses.
As you go through your day, engage ceaselessly with God, find quiet time to be with Him, draw close, pursue His heart so that you may be increasingly aware of when He desires a seed to be dropped. Have a blessed weekend.
In full pursuit of the greatest Trophy,
Scott Pace
