Ministry’s funny. No matter how much you serve, it’s hard to measure the impact of what we do. Occasionally, God allows us glimpses of what he’s doing. We see people come to Christ. Marriages are restored. People grow in faith. Most of the time, it’s like watching kids grow: we know it’s happening, but it’s so slow that we can’t see it.
That’s why I’m grateful for Jesus’ parable in Mark 4:26-29: a farmer sows seed. It grows, but he doesn’t know how. He goes to bed at night, and the seed grows and eventually leads to harvest.
I’m a lot like that farmer.
I preach every week. Like the farmer, I work hard. But there’s so much I don’t understand because I’m only a piece of the puzzle.
The other part of the puzzle is the seed. It has a generative power of its own. Even when I go to bed, that seed is at work. It’s unstoppable. Although pastors and other Christian workers play a role, we can’t take credit for what God does through our ministries. We play a role, but God causes the seed to grow even when we’re asleep.
This is humbling and encouraging at the same time. We play a role, but it’s not up to us. We don’t need to rely on personal charisma or giftedness. We have something much better: we have the seed that works even when we’re asleep. It’s unstoppable.
Charles Spurgeon’s advice to pastors, based on this passage, is helpful:
Take the sweet sleep which God gives to his beloved, the sleep of perfect confidence, such as Jesus slept in the hinder part of the ship when it was tossed with tempest. The cause of God never was in jeopardy, and never will be; the seed sown is insured by omnipotence, and must produce its harvest. In patience possess your soul, and wait till the harvest comes, for the pleasure of the Lord must prosper in the hands of Jesus.
The pressure’s off. Because the seed is “insured by omnipotence,” we can relax. It was never up to us. We just get up and do our part and leave the rest up to God. When the work seems slower than we’d like, and when it’s hard to measure what’s happening, we can remind ourselves that our job is simply to keep sowing and to trust that God’s work is happening even when we don’t see it. Be patient. The harvest is coming.
What good news for those of us who feel the weight of ministry. It’s not up to us. It’s out of our control. We can step away. We can rest. We can go to sleep.
We’re given the privilege of sowing seeds and helping in the harvest. But the kingdom grows by itself quite apart from human effort. We need not take on the burden of what only God can do on ourselves.
We get to play a role in what God is doing, but we also get to go to sleep, reminding ourselves that it’s not up to us. We can have both confidence and rest at the same time.
The pressure’s off. Play your role, and then go to sleep. God’s at work, and his cause will never fail.