Sometimes, when we go through a bit of a rough patch, instead of running away (which is always our first instinct) instead, we make a good choice and decide to plant a good seed in that place. But then for a while, it feels like nothing’s happening.

Have you ever planted a seed into some dirt? There’s something that, well frankly, is unnerving about this simple transaction. You take the seed and invariably it costs you something, you put it into the dirt and you cover it up and it's gone. There's a little kid inside each of us who wants to sit there and say, "Ok, well. I planted you, I watered you, where are you?" Now we're patient, we give it thirty seconds, a minute maybe. "Come on, grow you little sucker."

It's true isn't it? We expect instant results. When something in our lives isn't quite right sometimes we have the good sense to sow a good seed into that place. A broken relationship – we sow a small act of kindness, a boring job – we throw ourselves into a project with new vigour, a rebellious teenager – we do something that says, "I love you" and then we expect instant results but life’s not like that.

When we plant that little seed in the dirt it disappears for a while and that "while" can seem so excruciatingly long can't it? And all we seem to be doing is watering the dirt and so we have a problem. We plant a seed and we wait. Let’s explore that time of waiting just a little bit more today.

A seed is a simple little thing but it might look simple but it has a complex DNA soup inside and this dry, brown, little thing is a container of life, of potential, of reproduction. A seed doesn't look like much but every flower that will ever grow already exists in a seed somewhere. When we survey the landscape of our lives we so often see parts of our lives that are going so well.

It's like being at a lookout and you look out and you see the valleys and the fields and the trees and way over on the left it can be sunny and you can look over on the right and there’s a storm happening over there and life can be like that. Some parts of our lives can be just fantastic but one or two areas of life might be, well a little less than what we expected, we might be missing out on something.

Maybe we're in credit card debt and our finances are a mess or maybe, I don't know, something’s going wrong at home with the kids or the marriage relationship or maybe at work or maybe emotionally. Some relationship, some situation is not producing a healthy harvest and when that’s happening, got to tell ya, I don't know how you are but I don't feel like planting a good seed into that particular space.

When I have a relationship with someone that's not working well the last thing I naturally feel like doing is planting a seed of blessing, of kindness. We don't want to do that, you know, when we've got problems with our finances and we're starting to sort them through and God says, "You know something? I want you to plant a seed of financial blessing over here into this ministry or into this person’s life."

We don't want to do that but God, God wants us to plant seeds in faith even when the going is tough, in fact, especially when the going gets tough and especially when we don't feel like going and planting a seed.

Now, lets say its our finances and lets say we decide to start disciplining ourselves with our finances and paying off the credit card debt because we just know we can't go on like this, we've prayed about it and that's what God’s calling us to do, let me ask you, the day that we decide that, the next day is the debt gone? Of course it's not, we don't end up debt free overnight, it takes time doesn't it?

And it's like that when a farmer takes a seed and plants it into the ground. It's a tense time, farmers spend a huge amount of money on seeds and everything has to be just right and there's nothing else they can do. They plant the seed into the ground and they just have to believe that it's going to come out.

When you and I sow a seed into a difficult situation, that waiting, you know you put the seed into the ground, it disappears, it's like it's gone, it's like almost it never happened. A seed in a sense, a physical seed is different because you know you planted the seed into the dirt.

But when we plant an emotional seed or a spiritual seed, when we show someone some kindness or faithfulness or we do something to someone who is not nice to us, a week later, a day later it can seem like it's gone because they're back to their old behaviour again and having a go at us again. And we think, "oh well, that didn't work, did it? I knew this seed planting thing would never work."

Yesterday we saw how Isaac, and you can read about it in God’s Word the Bible, in Genesis chapter 26, sowed a seed in the midst of a famine. You and I can sow a seed into a difficult relationship, right now, sow that seed and nothing happens and we sow another seed and nothing happens and we sow another seed and nothing happens, we do it again and nothing happens. You know what we want to do? We want to give up, we just want to say, "this stupid seed sowing thing just isn't going to work, blah ... " and we walk away in disgust and we give up prematurely.

But just a few centimetres under the surface that seed hasn't given up. I have this picture of a farmer planting all his seed in his fields and the seeds not coming up so he goes broke and he walks off his land and he's just driving down the dirt road with his family and they’re crying because they're leaving the farm forever and they just turn the corner. Just as they turn the corner, behind them, little green shoots are starting to come up through the ground. Wouldn't that be a tragedy? Wouldn't it be a tragedy to give up just before the little green shoots started appearing?

We live in such an impatient world; we walk away before the shoots come forth. We plant, we nurture, we water and God gives it life. That difficult teenager, that marriage, that work situation, we sow good seeds into them in radical faith and we have a choice, at that point when we've sown the seed and we see nothing in return, before the little green shoot comes up out of the dirt, we can get impatient and walk away or we can water it and nurture it.

Sometimes we sow that seed and we water it and we believe and we nurture it. And months and even years can go by and we see nothing or worse still, things get worse. But God sees them. You see, that's the amazing thing, when it's hidden, those hidden things, we can't see them in the natural. But God sees them just like that little seed of wheat that’s under the ground there that the farmer has planted. But the farmer can't make it grow, only God can make it grow and it grows naturally.

When we plant good seed in soil it grows naturally and when we plant seeds into the lives of difficult people, we can't see it but it grows naturally. God is the one who that makes it grow even when you and I can't see it. That is such an exciting thing to understand. God sees, God blesses and under that surface in a dark place where we can't see the seed, it's putting up a little green shoot. Wait for it - it's happening.

We can be so discouraged that we stop watering, we stop nurturing, we stop planting seed. We're going to talk tomorrow about the time it takes to get to the harvest but right now in that really initial point let me encourage you. If you are planting good seeds into difficult situations, into your finances, into your relationships, into your marriage, into your family, into your work, into your Church, wherever it is, if you are planting good seed do not expect the little green shoots to come up in thirty seconds or a minute or a half an hour or a day or even a week or even a month.

It takes time. There's a reason why it takes time and we'll talk about it on the program later on this week. But while that time is happening there's something else growing - our faith. Believing that God will do it. It's a good prayer point, it's a good thing to pray, when we've planted a seed and I have to wait, ‘change my heart.’ It's happening, the seed is germinating, just wait for it, wait for it!