“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.”
– James 5:7

Growing up as a Southern Baptist kid in the evangelical tradition, I didn’t go to a church that was all “turn or burn” or anything like that. Still, I was raised in churches where most every sermon ended with an altar call, and the culmination of the preaching always pointed at the “Come to Jesus” prayer. And in basics, I am grateful to know that grace is a palace with an unlocked front door on some really lubed-up hinges, and a simple uttered “Yes” swings the door open. I accept that. I can see God like that. The gift of salvation and of God’s grace is like one of those posters where you can stare and stare at it for hours and never see it in the picture, and then one morning, when you pass by it to get to the coffee pot, it catches your eye, and you stop and look again at the picture, and you wonder how you missed it. And yet, I don’t know how many times I’ve sat through the invitation prayer, pressure building inside, I questioning my heart (as both a youth and an adult), guts twisting up, wondering if I needed to say it again, unsure. All you got to do is say that prayer.

I’m a little older now, but I am still a Baptist by theology. I still believe in the power and efficacy of the gospel- of a shared set of words and concepts- to carry a heart over from darkness and death into light and life. I still believe that inside the person is a spiritual center that knows and responds to God when God shows up to them. I still believe words are key in the transference of the heart from this secular domain to the spiritual one. But I’m a little older now.

I’ve been having some problems the last few weeks as a gardener. I was excited to try and grow some vegetables this year, so I finally got a garden box built. I went and purchased some highly recommended top soil to fill the box. I took time to measure out rows and to plan what seeds would fill them in the box. And then my nephew and I planted the seeds, and I became faithful daily to make sure they were watered. According to the seed packages, the were supposed to sprout in my nicely built, well-prepared, richly soiled box about two weeks ago. About that time, two or three lettuce sprouts popped up- but that was it. And so I would look more closely at the earth the following day, and then moreso the following day, hoping to see a new plant pop up. Four and some weeks in now, most of my garden box’s topsoil looks like an empty field of clods in West Texas. I water; I watch; I wait.

It it no surprise that Jesus chose to use the image of farming (see Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8, Luke 13, Matthew 21, Luke 20) to describe the process of spiritual cultivation that people go through to “find God”. The illustration works on two levels, because it alludes to God being the farmer- concerned about sowing a soul and then watching it, like a farmer does his crops, to see when and how it emerges as an individual, and what it will become. It also alludes to us humans as being spiritual seeds that God has sown into this world, planted with a hope that we will find nourishment and heat and conditions just right enough that we grow and become whatever it is we are supposed to become. We are designed and imprinted to grow.

The hard part of the farming illustration, then, lies in the mystery and magic that happens when a seed, that great storehouse of potential, is selected to become a plant. It then goes through the germination process, which requires that it is buried. He buries it. Out of sight, out of light. Like a dead thing.

In the earth, it no longer is in the farmer’s field of sight. The farmer will work to water it and to watch the soil around it, but the farmer no longer has control- or confirmation- that the seed will become a plant.

This process seems more in line with how God is with each human heart, and accordingly, this picture also tells us something about salvation and its incumbant surrendering to God. It takes time, and its a process.

Just as a seed comes to life when it is buried, given a little helping hand, and, otherwise, left alone for a while, it takes time for the heart to come alive, to come into the light of the Kingdom, after being interred for a duration, left alone, for the spirit to sprout.

The invitation prayer has its marked place in my evangelical heritage. But the response to the call at that time, for those that stick, is usually on the heels of heart time spent in extended heed. The water of the Gospel has softened the seed’s shell, and called it out to bore up through the darkness around it into the light.

Spiritual awakening and spiritual growth in a heart require time, nurturing, and patience.

And a little mystery and magic occuring “underground”- out of sight, out of light- as well.