Series: Grow Strong
Sermon: Growing Whom?
Speaker and Writer: Jessyka Albert
Refresh: Start with a prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to open your heart to new understanding and for God’s character to be revealed.
Read: Matthew 13:1-43 (Message). Note 1–3 insights or questions.
Reflect: Trying to infuse your life with good things—healthy food, exercise, Bible study, volunteer service at the homeless shelter, church attendance, good parenting, Christian education—is not a recipe for success. There is simply no guarantee that effort along will bring the results you want. Frustrating right? Don’t you just hate it when you're going about your day doing everything you can to make it good (tiling your soil and planting seeds for roses) and someone blows dandelion seeds all over your freshly-prepared earth? No one likes weeds. They get in the way of what’s supposed to be growing. In this passage, the farmhands of the sower ask if they should pull out all the weeds that are growing alongside the good crops, but he instructs them not to. He tells them to wait.
Frustrating.
God often calls us to a space of waiting. He instructs us not to act—to avoid accidentally messing up the good things that are growing alongside the bad. We often feel like we know what’s best. We did everything right, after all. We want our Instagram-perfect field, and no filter will fix how those weeds look mixed among our beautiful plants.
Much like the servants in the parable, and the Jews in Jesus’ time, we find it extremely hard to be patient when God tells us to wait, especially when we think we see a easy fix to the problem. God instead allows us to grow in the midst of trials and suffering. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (ESV):
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Weeds and weaknesses and problems and imperfections are an inevitable part of life. They can’t be removed right away. We have to wait. So how do we handle the waiting? How do we let that time define us? It is easy to become bitter and angry and to stomp our feet, but choosing to wait in joy it is life-giving. We can choose to wait in the power of Jesus.
Recalibrate: What is something that Jesus has recently told you to wait for? How are you waiting?
Respond: Pray for a heart of patience, that you may find joy in the times in which you struggle with waiting.
Research: As a personal experiment, drive the speed limit, let someone cut in front of you at the coffee shop, go back and spend a little bit more time in the “Respond” section of the Daily Walk. Log the results of your patience.
Wonder: Take time to model patience today with your child or children. Have them be a part of a chore or cooking a meal. It will most likely take ten times longer than usual, but while you go about this activity share with them about how patient Jesus is with us and how much fun we can have when we wait for Him.
Adventure: Today when you have to wait in line, wait for mom or dad to get ready, or wait for dinner, find a creative way to find joy in the waiting. Play a game of I Spy or talk about what kind of invention you’d like to make. Having fun while waiting is so much better than being grumpy and waiting. Jesus wants to help us grow into joyful people, not grumpy people.
Purpose: Who do you have the hardest time being patient with? Your parents? Teachers? A friend? You siblings? How does impatience change the situation? How does impatience change your heart?