Planting a Seed in God’s Time Can Take a Long Time!

Over 20 years ago my good buddy from Pastoral Counseling school, my girls, then 8 and 10, and I took a trip to St. Martin Island.  It was a blast. We went snorkeling, parasailing (I watched that one!) and just played at the beach and in the lovely water. It was on one of our excursions I saw a plant I admired. It grew in the sand, and was essentially lots of palm-like leaves bunched together at the base and cascading upward to form about a 3 foot tropical plant. A resident who heard me say how beautiful it was, tracked me down on the beach later. He held my wrist, asked me to open my hand, and there he placed an oval shaped object about the size of a baby carrot. It was a seed that came from the plant I had admired.

I put it in a pocket and forgot about it. It got packed with my clothes to come back into the United States and somehow got through security and agricultural checks, and I rediscovered it once home. I put it on my dresser where it sat for weeks. One day I thought I might plant it in a pot of soil. To my surprise after a while (when I assumed it was rotting in the soil) it put out a little green shoot. Since then it has grown to be a large house plant, taking very little care to maintain.

Forward 20 years and last week, as I was peering out from my kitchen into the next room, I gasped. There was a tall stem and a flower bud that had grown seemingly over night that towered over the plant. In a few days, two more stems have appeared, and some are now in full bloom.

How many seeds have we planted in our lives that take years or decades to flower? What can you plant today that may bloom in many years to come? Can you partner with the Spirit which passes through all things to ask for guidance to begin, what seeds will you plant? What would happen if you planted kindness, compassion, truthfulness, or loving intervention today? What seeds did you plant long ago that are blooming now?