Tired of Doing the Right Things with No Results?

Ever get discouraged because you keep on doing what you're supposed to do but you don't see results?

Jesus and the Apostle Paul both used the analogy of sowing and reaping.   Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13 about a guy was scattering seeds.

As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 

If anyone knows what it is like to sow a bunch of seeds that are wasted, it is Jesus.   He routinely and daily gives his love and his best to people who reject him in a multitude of ways for a multitude of reasons.

Then Paul told the Corinthians,  "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow."

Putting those two passages together reminds us that we need to keep doing what we're supposed to be doing.... sowing seed.  Or possibly watering it.  But the results are up to God.  It's only God that makes it grow.

So, if you are discouraged because someone is not responding the way you want them to when you continue to sow and sow and so, don't be.   

God is not asking us to grow plants -- that's his job.

All he's asking us to do is to sow the seeds.

If you replace the word swimming with the words sowing, I hope this song gets stuck in your head not just today... but for the rest of your life.