Small pots, damp soil
Rachel and Wells planted seeds one night earlier this week. I walked into the kitchen and they were at the counter together, Wells standing on his stool, pressing seeds into small pots of dark soil with his fingertips. Rachel was next to him, guiding his hands, both of them quiet in a way that surprised me. The whole counter smelled like wet earth.
The pots have been sitting on our bathroom window ledge since then. Three sets in a row, damp and still. Nothing visible.
Wells checked them yesterday morning. “Are they growing yet?”
Not yet, buddy.
He’ll check again tomorrow. And the next day. And at some point he’ll lose interest, because nothing is happening. Except something is. The seed is in the dark doing exactly what seeds do. Splitting open. Sending a root down before it ever sends a shoot up. The first movement of every living thing is invisible.
We don’t have much patience for invisible work. The culture we swim in measures life by the sprout. The visible, the shareable, the proof that something is happening. If you can’t show progress, you’re not making any. If the soil looks the same as yesterday, nothing’s changed.
But that’s not how growth works. It’s not even how Jesus said it works.
He told a story once about a farmer scattering seed. It landed on four kinds of ground: a hard path, rocky soil, thorns, and good earth. Same seed every time. Same farmer. Same throw. The variable wasn’t the seed. It was the soil.
It’s easy to read that parable and focus on the harvest. The thirty, sixty, hundredfold return. The fruit you could count. But lately I keep looking at the dirt. The good ground didn’t produce because it was special. It produced because it was ready. Broken up, turned over, cleared of the things that choke new life before it can take hold.
Which means the season where nothing visible is happening might be the most important one. Not wasted time. Preparation. God working the soil while you’re standing at the window wondering why nothing’s growing yet.
Most of faithfulness looks like a window ledge. Small pots. Damp soil. Nothing to show anyone.
Wells will check the pots again tomorrow. He’ll press his face close to the dirt and look for something green. And I’ll say the same thing I said yesterday: not yet. Keep waiting. It’s doing what it needs to do.
Tend the ground. The seed knows what to do.
This week’s practice:
What are you waiting on right now that feels stalled? A relationship. A calling. A change in yourself you keep praying for.
What if the wait isn’t a delay? What if you’re the soil?
More next week,
Rex