Sprouting Seeds of Faith

Hey there, friends! This is my very first blog post, and I want to take a moment to welcome you to this space. I truly believe that in community, our faith in Christ can be fostered and continue to grow and thrive. This is an open space for meaningful conversations on how to do our part in serving our Savior and honest truth about my own walk with the Lord. I pray that through this blog, you will be inspired to seek Jesus with all of your heart, soul and mind. May the Lord bless you in every way.

This very first (eeek!) blog post is about faith. More specifically, planting seeds of faith. Most of us have probably heard at least a dozen sermons on spreading the Word... and this just supports how important it is. An eternal life after death is no joke... imagine how many lives could be saved, how many children could walk with Christ if we simply reached out to share faith.

In all honesty, it doesn't seem like the easiest task. When the Holy Spirit calls us to preach, to share the best news of a light in this world of darkness... how often do we ignore that voice, that tug in our hearts? How often do we shove these thoughts deep down... maybe if we push them far enough away, we won't feel so guilty.

I am in no way here to condemn. How many times have I run through these tracks myself? Even as my faith and relationship with the Lord grows, how much do I still struggle with sharing the Gospel to my friends, my teachers, strangers on the street? In all honesty... a lot.

In the past year of my life, I have found myself praying the "dangerous prayers"... the "search me, send me, use me" prayers... and in response, the Lord put this blog onto my heart. What started with prayer spiraled into a journey and response in my quiet time. As I followed a devotional, I found myself reading and meditating on Mark 4.

Reading these words, I felt a tug in my heart to dig deeper. Pulling out my pens, I filled the margins with all sorts of arrows and decoded symbols. Reading these verses over again, God’s message fell into my heart... leaving myself guilty as charged. You see, friends, this parable of a man spreading seeds translates to the truth of spreading faith. When a believer scatters "seeds of faith" out into the world, it grows. Life continues on, and chances are the believer may never know what happened to those sowed seeds... but as in reality, seeds grow. They grow and they thrive... producing a beautiful, golden grain. When we share God’s Word, a lifetime of a difference is made - literally. God uses us for good. He uses us in the best way - we are meant to serve and bring glory to the Lord our Savior. We are called to magnify Him, to share this light of faith with others.

We, servants of the Lord, are called to spread these seeds of faith. As Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, ”I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives within me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus came down to earth, in all its wickedness and evil, to be the good news, the Savior of the world. After His journey on earth, He parted the disciples with these words: ”Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20).

The Lord has commissioned us to spread his Word. While some of us (myself included) may not be Bible scholars, pastors or even lifetime believers, we each have something - a testimony. We each have our own experiences with the Father, our own wild journeys of faith and trust and deliverance through hard times. These truths make up a messy, knotted creation of beauty where the Lord found us, wrapped His arms around us and called us His children. These testimonies - whether through sharing with strangers on the street or even sharing this blog with a friend - these testimonies are everything. The disciples themselves weren’t experts on the Lord when Jesus tasked them with sharing the Spirit; yet they went out and ministered and prayed and testified - and so, more believers came to walk with the Lord.

Friends, I pray that the Lord puts it on your heart to scatter these seed of faith. To share faith means so much... I pray that through your testimony, through your words of trial and error, of trust and truth of Jesus’ unfailing love, many are turned to the Lord in awe and wonder, ready to begin anew. I pray that through you, tens and hundreds and thousands of people are blessed and welcomed to the kingdom of God... and finally, I pray that while you may not ever know whether your scattered seeds have sprouted, that you are filled with purpose and an unending sense of joy in knowing that you are a child of the one true King. In Jesus’ name, amen.