Mark 4:26-29
26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Why is it that we expect things to happen in our lives overnight? I have this kind of personality. I see things and I expect them to happen quickly. I call it the fast food mentality. But sometimes we fail to see that there is a process. Everything great started small. It didn’t start great. It became great.
This thought reminds me of the giant sequoia trees that grow along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. If you have ever seen them, these trees are ginormous. Among these trees is the largest tree in the world. It is 275 feet tall and weighs in at a whopping 2.7 million pounds. That’s right – I said million. To help you understand the enormity of this tree, The Statue of Liberty in New York’s harbor is 305 feet tall – only 30 feet taller. So this tree is almost as tall as Lady Liberty who weighs 450,000 pounds as compared to this tree’s 2.7 million. The circumference of this tree, which is named “General Sherman”, is 102 feet. This is a huge tree. It is massive. Nature’s own skyscraper. It is the largest tree in the world. To think that this behemoth started as a small seed and then a sapling. It did not start out as the world’s biggest tree. It has taken it 2,500 years to earn that title. These giant sequoia’s only grow naturally in Northern California at an elevation of 5,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. So, what started as a seed in the right environment became the world’s mightiest tree. It took time to grow. There was a process. We, like this tree, must go through the process to become who God has called and purposed for us to be. Our walk with God starts as a seed, and then by watering the seed with the Word of God, it becomes a blade, then an ear, then the full grain in the ear until we are fully mature and ripe just like the scripture says in Mark 4.
If you are looking for a place to grow and people to grow with, Equip School of Ministry is the right environment for you to take bold steps toward the future that God has for you. An oak tree starts as an acorn, but within it is an oak tree waiting to happen! At Equip we are all excited to see what God will bring forth out of your life.
Alan Mushegan, Jr.
