All By Itself...

So I was walking back from doing a little shopping at the neighborhood grocery store this morning when I noticed these stalks of corn growing out of the side of the little cliff above Brighton Road.  There are some almost ripe ears on them so I may rappel down in a week or two and harvest them, but that isn't the reason that I write.

The curious scene of corn growing in the middle of the city on a side of a cliff got me to thinking about a favorite passage of Scripture.  In Mark 4, Jesus said "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

This just served to remind me of how often we try to do the things we should let God do all the while trying to get Him to do the things that we're supposed to do.  The "all by itself" phrase in Jesus' parable is, in my estimation, His way of saying that the farmer has a role and ought to play it.  But when all is said and done, there are some things only God can do.  We should be doing our stuff, and quit expecting Him to do it.  We should be letting Him do His, and quit trying to do His job.

Now I was going to go on to conjecture what some of "our jobs" and "His jobs" may be, but perhaps I'll wait.  Maybe I'll build on the list that you, faithful readers, provide.  Bring it on!