about walking away

I am not a farmer.

This is probably not a surprise.  But even generally, I don't really have much of an intuition for how to grow and sustain things.  A few weeks ago, I killed my desk plant (RIP Susie Succulent), and I don't think those things even need that much attention.

Regardless of these facts, for the past few days, I've been thinking about farming.

On Monday, in between meetings and phone calls with clients, one of my best friends started g-chatting me and suddenly we were talking about Jesus, which is often exactly the kind of break I need in the office. She talked about the difficulty of going to God and giving him things, like actually laying them down.

I've thought about it ever since, because when she said it, I realized that I don't actually think too much about the process of bringing things to Jesus.  I try to do it, but rarely do I stop and think about what that actually means.

My brain processes things the best in the context of stories or metaphors, which is one reason I think the bible is so lovely, that it's filled with all of those things.  And so, when I was driving to work in the rain yesterday, this thought came to me:

As we attempt to surrender our futures/worries/desires/gifts/money/talent/relationships/conversations/minutes&seconds to Jesus, it's a lot like farming. 

Imagine you are holding a precious seed, and you have all sorts of hopes for this little thing - you have fears too, and concerns, and doubts and wishes. Isn't that how we are with most of the things that plague our thoughts or mean the most to us?

And at the same time, as we look in our hands at the things that mean the most to us, we must also remember that the control doesn't belong there. That's where the "laying down" comes -- Jesus asks  us to come to him with all our things, and to follow and to trust that he is sovereign over them.

He asks us to put them before him.

I imagine this is how a farmer feels readying a crop.  There is so much hope and fear in the planting. The farmer must lay down the seed and trust it to either grow or die. He can't constantly come back, dig it up, and carry it around everywhere he goes.

And yet, it's so easy to do that! To go before the Lord one minute, bearing all and placing a fear or dream before him, and then the next to return with panicky hands and snatch the thing back because it feels safer with us. 

But that is not what surrender looks like.

You go, you place your things right there into the soil, and then you walk away.

The harvest does not come because we lugged around the seed; it comes because we let it go.