Sowing the Seed

Was at Worldwide05 last night, the Bangor worldwide missionary convention. Speaker was a guy John Woodside from Drogheda Presbyterian; spoke on the sowing of the seed, and how Jesus parables relate more than ever to today’s culture in a post-Christian, post-modern largely apathetic society.
He used Mark 4, and started out painting a pretty grim picture of so much seed sown, with sometimes so little evidence of growth and new life.  And sometimes that’s how we can feel about the “mission” were involved in wherever we are be it Boardmills, Raffery or further afield.  Week by week we faithfully sow the seed, but rarely do we see the results.  And that’s where the problem is, not with the seed (Gods word), or the method of sowing, but when we think we have anything to do with the process.  It’s all about God, it’s seeds of his Gospel we are sowing, and it’s in his timing and according to his purpose that the seed will take root and grow.  
And when the seed starts to grow, the results are beyond our wildest dreams, as the seed takes root it multiples and the result is a mighty harvest.  So as we sow the seed week by week, even if it seems like a waste at times, we have to remember the Lord of the harvest, who will enable that seed to take root and bear a mighty crop in his perfect timing.  The gospel is compared to the mustard seed, the smallest seed, yet when it takes root it grows into the largest of garden plants.  And this is the gospel we proclaim, and it still has the same power to transform lives.  I know it does because it has transformed mine, so keep sowing the seed faithfully, bringing it before the Lord of the harvest, and trust him to one day reap a mighty harvest.