Planting Seeds

Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches. Matthew 13:32 NIV

I have been waking up in the morning to beautiful melodies outside my window. The birds and their chirping is really music to my ears. A bright red cardinal perched on my back porch table just this week. He was looking at me and I was looking at him. It seemed like forever that we held that gaze but then he flew up to a nearby tree branch.

Recently I spent an afternoon strolling the aisles of a beautiful greenhouse and garden center. It was a true experience in whetting my appetite for spring. Everything was so green, colorful, with blooms everywhere, rows of houseplants, herbs and vegetable seedlings. Even tables of orchids in hues of lavender, yellow and green in great abundance. And then, one area was completely devoted to the birds. I found seeds of all kinds that were packaged in little cartons and large fifty pound bags to attract all types of backyard feathered friends. Gorgeous feeders in all sizes, shapes and colors in materials like metal, plastic and wood hung from the trellised ceiling. Birdhouses were lined up on shelves, too. Big ones and little ones, hanging ones and the types you nail to a post or eaves.

The great thing about a winter day is planning for spring! The vegetable and flower seed catalogs have been arriving since the first week in January. I love looking at them and planning for a new season. What more could a backyard have but vegetables, flowers, birds and butterflies! But first, I think I will start with the birds. A little seed should go a long way in establishing a sanctuary and a building a good relationship with the songbirds to last more than a season.

It all starts with a seed. God plants seeds within us, too. Those seeds become the foundation for ideas that can lead to life changing decisions or ideas to make our everyday life a bit better. He is always refining us. Filling us with ideas and thoughts to make us rise up. We can plant seeds too…but not only in the ground. We can plant seeds in the lives, minds and hearts of people that cross our path. An insecure person will thrive on a compliment. A sick person will grab on to hope. A troubled person could use a prayer of encouragement. In our daily journey through life, at the post office, convenience store, at work or the line at the grocery store we can plant seeds. Simply holding the door open for someone will remind them that there is kindness still in this world. Planting a seed is not just a spring endeavor. We can plant encouraging and uplifting seeds all the time and everywhere we go with our simple actions and words. We never know what a single seed of love, kindness, encouragement or hope can produce but God knows. All it takes is the planting of a single seed, a single act, to set the process in motion.

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