Do you know that on average, a person has to hear the gospel 7 times before accepting Christ? That’s just an average, so some people need to hear way more than 7. For most of my life, I lived as if I should be the 7th person. I expected fruit every time I shared Jesus. What a way to set myself up for disappointment. Just like anything else in life, I preferred the easy route with the highest reward. I wanted to tell someone Jesus loved them, pray a salvation prayer, and go dunk ’em in the nearest body of water around.
Preparing for the race taught me a lot, but actually living this out has been an entirely different ballgame. For our first debrief, our squad is staying in a hostel in Accra, Ghana. In the courtyard, there are maybe 20 bags of potting soil gathered together. Our first day here, they were just potting soil. 3 days later, there are things sprouting up from that soil and beginning to grow rapidly. I am pretending they are beansprouts, even though that doesn’t make much sense, because beans grow quickly.
In my journey through the gospel of Matthew, I recently have been studying the parable of the sower. Jesus talks about sowing seed into different types of ground and how the type of ground you are determines your growth. We make the choice to be fertile ground. No one around us can change that, but what about other people?
When we go out and share the gospel, we expect that everyone is going to be fertile ground and that as soon as we share, we will see growth. I wanted to come on the race and see people grow like the beansprouts at our hostel. I wanted instant results.
The problem with that mindset is it sets you up for failure. Many people can still be fertile ground without showing you obvious growth. Jesus doesn’t often choose to only work at the surface level. Spiritual transformation begins below the surface, and often, lasting change requires time to begin to show. I conjecture that more often than not, people are like potatoes.
Potatoes require faith. They grow entirely below the surface of the ground, and there is no evidence of their existence or size until harvest. Potato farmers literally have to trust that something is happening. Unlike beansprouts, potatoes take a lot of time to produce tangible results; however, just like beansprouts, they are constantly growing.
Soil isn’t necessarily “bad” just because you can’t see something happening. Roots take hold beneath the soil, and we can’t see the full extent of their reach and depth. When we evangelize, we aren’t guaranteed to see fruit or results. If each person requires an average of 7 presentations of the gospel before accepting Christ, who are we to assume that we are always #7?
The body of Christ is a team and has to work together to cultivate fruit in all kinds of soil. Not all of it is good, but the soil that is ready to cultivate fruit isn’t always what we think it should appear to be. Jesus set a beautiful example of not discriminating based on people’s external appearances because He knew that the quality of their heart determined their character. As the body of Christ, are we trying to emulate that and see past the surface?
You might get a lot of beansprouts in your lifetime, and that is truly a blessing. On the other hand, you might only deal with potatoes. In my opinion, potatoes are the bigger blessing because it requires you to trust in the process God has in place. Potatoes bring glory to His name and prevent us from taking any credit for ourselves. Although potatoes can be frustrating and at times even discouraging, they pay off in the long run.
Potatoes re-spawn, meaning they can grow out of themselves. They reproduce faster than most other plants. They take longer to harvest, but their harvest is almost always abundant. If you only ever dealt with potatoes, and your only job was to plant and water but never to harvest, would you still trust that God is good and is on the move?
Sometimes it feels like we are working in circles without ever seeing the product of our labor. I believe that God uses those seasons to help us grow, to teach us perseverance, and to increase our faith. If you’re in a season of all potatoes, ask God to show you the blessings and to help you reap the lessons He is trying to teach you.
I don’t know about you, but I’m praying for potatoes.
