A few weeks ago, I planted zucchini seeds in my garden. I tended to them, watered them and watched as the little seedlings soon began to sprout. It’s such an exciting moment to see those little guys pop up! But then I thought, oh no! There’s too many, I have to thin these seeds out. Sadly, I began pulling beautiful seedlings from my garden. It pains me to pull up seemingly perfect plants! But, as I sat there thinking about why I had to do this in the first place, God tapped on my shoulder.
What is the Point in Thinning Seeds?
Thinning seedlings is when you pull some seedlings from the soil to give space for others to grow. This is done when you have planted many seeds in a small space to ensure a high germination rate. Then, as they grow, you thin out the seeds to allow adequate water, nutrients, and space for the remaining seeds. You start by pulling out the seedlings that look the worst but sometimes, you also have to pull out seedlings that look great. This is done when there is just not enough space for them all. And if left, even the beautiful seedlings will not have adequate nutrients to grow into healthy, mature plants.
Sometimes God Pulls the Ugly Seedlings
As I was sitting there, sad that I had to pull up all these plants, God spoke to me. He told me that sometimes He has to pull things away to help us grow. Sometimes this is easy for us to understand, but other times it is devastating, at least at first.
Philippians 3:8 says “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”
A lot of the time, these things God is pulling look like the bad seedlings and that is easy for us to reconcile with. Because sometimes these things look like garbage. Things like blatant sins, bad relationships, or unhealthy habits. Even if we don’t want to give them up, we can easily see how these things are hindering our relationship with Christ. As we see in Philippians, we must lose these things in order to gain a real relationship with Jesus.
Sometimes God Pulls the Beautiful Seedlings
But sometimes, these things look like the beautiful seedlings. And we wonder why those things have to be stripped away. These things could be our job, a good relationship, even a church we are attending. These things may not be sins, they may even be good things but, they are not helping us grow in the direction God wants us to.
Remember Job? The guy who had everything and then had it all striped away. But he still trusted God. He still tuned out the voices of his friends and family telling him to turn from the Lord. Because sometimes we cannot see the full picture of God’s sovereignty. We think that anything good stripped away from us is some kind of punishment when in reality, it may just be what we need in order to fully bloom.
Have you ever had a situation where you had to give something up and you had no clue why? But later, maybe even years later, you saw how giving up that situation helped you grow in so many ways. Maybe it was a job you loved or living in a place that felt like home.
Colossians 2:6-7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Just how our plants cannot fully take root and grow if they are too crowded, we cannot fully take root in Jesus if we are too focused on other things in life. Even if those things don’t look like sin, if they are taking us away from God’s plan for our life, we need to pull them out to help us grow.
