This year I decided to plant a garden, so I borrowed a Burpee Heirloom catalog (heirlooms are plants that were cultivated years ago, but usually are not seen anymore) and ordered purple tomatoes, blue corn, lemon-sized squash and some other vegetables my wife said she wouldn't eat if they looked funny. The seeds arrived in seven to ten days.

When the box arrived, I read all the gardening tips Burpee had included about my order. The information included; how to transplant seedlings from indoors to outdoors, size of rows, when to plant, how to plant, etc. The majority of the packets said to start the seeds 6-8 weeks before the last frost then move the plants outdoors, and the seeds would take 5-14 days to germinate.

Upon checking our normal last frost day, April 15 (an ominous day), and figuring backward, the first or second week of March would be the right time to start the seeds. I planted the seeds March 9. On March 11, I had plants 3 inches tall—3-12 days before the seeds were supposed to start growing.

This was too easy, I just put the seeds in some peat and added water. Anybody can do this.

Sometimes we become discouraged when talking to others about Christ. We cannot see any results, so it looks like a waste of time. Jesus said in Mark 4:26ff, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head."

Paul wrote in I Cor 3:6 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow."

These verses should be an impetus to keep talking to others about Christ. That's what our job is, planting the seed, bringing knowledge of God to others. We don't need to see the seed sprouting and growing, bearing fruit. Sometimes the growth takes a long time. However, the results are up to God, not us.