What is it you want to grow this summer?

Click HERE and I’ll read the whole thing to you in just a few minutes! He wanted to grow a cabbage. The biggest one ever, he declared as he carried this tiny plant home from the bus stop. He was waving this paper about prizes you could win if your cabbage grows the biggest; visions of farmland and blue ribbons danced behind his eyes. But here’s the thing. This suburban boy of mine? He doesn’t even like cabbage.

Here in our elementary school, at the end of third grade, they send students home with a baby cabbage plant, some instructions and the promise of prize money for the biggest cabbage. It’s turned many city boys into farmers. Sorta.

We plant the cabbage and read the directions about sun and water. I explain that if he wants to grow this cabbage, he’s going to have to do the things that help cabbages grow. Every. Day.

And he nods excitedly. Sure! Whatever it takes! I am growing some cabbage! I’m all in. 

Until about two weeks later when it gets boring and there are more fun things to do.

And then that cabbage goes a weeks with too much sun and too much rain. And yesterday, when he finds it in the corner of the yard?  He sobs over the spindly stick in the pot. Why did it not become the biggest cabbage ever?  Why didn’t it grow?

Because you forgot about it; you didn’t do the things you needed to do to get the results you wanted to get.

Cabbages don’t grow without proper care. And as I comfort the boy who thought he was a farmer, I realize a truth I often overlook. Growing things is hard work.

And, it’s as true in life as it is in the garden. Ever tried to grow something new in your own life? A new career path, a dream, a friendship or maybe just a more balanced life where you don’t feel like you’re spinning in circles all the time?

It isn’t easy, is it?

I have much in common with my boy who thinks he can grow a prize cabbage without ever having to tend to it. Amazing intentions give way to the demands of the day. I get pulled away and abandon the simple acts of watering and monitoring sunlight.

And then I wonder why nothing grows.

Seth Godin in his book The Dip says this, “Almost everything in life worth doing is controlled by the dip. At the beginning when you start something, it is fun … and it is easy to stay engaged. And then the dip happens. The dip is the long slog between starting and mastery … The long slog that is actually a shortcut because it is the only way that gets you where you want to go” (Godin).

Ever been there? Are you there now? In the middle of a “long slog”? Holding a handful of good intentions and wondering why nothing grows out of them?

We are about three weeks into summer here in the suburbs. And this year has knocked the wind out of our family a bit. So I begin summer filled with hope for restoration and renewal. But. By the end of the third day, I am ready to throw in the towel.

I want to grow good quality time with my boys, more space for conversation, more fun. But real life looks like war-time negotiations for extra screen time, endless discussions about why we can’t have more snacks and arguments about who took the trash out last time. And I stare at that whithered cabbage plant in the corner of the deck and know just how it feels.

Growing things is hard work. You know this too I am sure. Maybe you have even prayed this prayer well: Lord, I am doing all of these good things, why is nothing working? Why can’t I grow the things I want to grow in this space?

I gaze up at heaven wanting a checklist or a behavior modification that can somehow bring order out of all this chaos. But it’s a whisper I get. A whisper of a verse I’ve known since childhood. Perhaps that’s why I always hear it in the King James version with the weird pronouns “Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

No, I argue. I want to grow peace and order, I insist this as one boy runs through the kitchen in his socks and slides into his brother who is drinking chocolate milk in the middle of the kitchen. The result is not restful.

But all day that verse stays in my head as I wonder at my lack of focus and my inability to grow anything. Come to me, Jesus just keeps beckoning.

And I am slow to get it. I will not be able to walk through this dip without him. The places where all seems barren and no good thing appears to be growing those are the places where I am most tempted to look within myself for the strength to grow. But maybe I have it all wrong?

I think the growing is all up to me. And still Jesus stands and whispers, “Come to me”.

He’s here in the middle of it all. That’s the thing I always miss. I want to grow the prize cabbage, the perfect summer day, the spectaclurly planned moment and then present it to him so he can marvel at my ability to grow where I am planted.

And instead, the Savior of the whole world walks into my chocolate milk covered kitchen and lifts my chin towards his face. Come to me, walk with me, follow me.

And it’s a choice I am given; much like deciding to water a plant. And you are given this choice, too. A life lived in step with Jesus doesn’t happen by accident. It happens one step, one drink of water at a time. And what God can grow from our willingness to simply come to him might just amaze us. Every. Day.

“I (Paul) planted the seed in your hearts, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”

** Music in the recording is from This YouTube channel. Awesome guitar music here. I love listening while I am working.