The Joy of Planting

It’s Time to Plant the Seeds

This is a hydroponic planter that my son gave me. These are tomato and jalapeno pepper seeds. And here is some dirt. According to the vegetable planting calendar for Houston, the growing calendar for tomatoes suggests that the seeds go in the indoor planter on the 11th of January (we are a week ahead). They will be ready to transplant on March 8th. The peppers are suggested to go in the indoor planter on the 4th(today) and are also ready to transplant on March 8th.

I think that homegrown tomatoes taste far better than any you get at the store. Cindy and I like to make caprese salad with tomatoes. Slice the tomatoes, slice some mozzarella, add some sweet basil, oil and vinegar and you have a treat. Or…slice the tomato and simply salt and pepper. Or…slap a slice on top of a delicious cheeseburger.

I like to plant jalapenos basically for one thing…stuff it with cream cheese and wrap it with bacon! Smoke it on the grill until the bacon is firm and enjoy!

Planting is about expectation. The seed is linked to the goodness of the harvest. From a seed you have expectation…fruit, vegetable, or shade. A faithful God invites His people to live with faithful expectations. What we plant in trust, God grows in faithfulness.

Notice something about planting – you don’t dig the seed up every morning to check its progress. You trust the process because you trust the design. And spiritually, expectation works the same way. We wait not because we’re passive but because God is faithful.

What are you expecting this year? We can’t expect without planting and that is why I think we should talk about planting.

Planting

In the OT there was a prophet (we call him a minor prophet) who spoke up for God when the nation abandoned its commitment to God and began to worship the false god Baal. His name was Hosea. Hosea saw God’s faithfulness like the dependability of the dawn and spring rain.

Expectation has a lot to do with our view of God. Is He dependable? Is He good? Do circumstances dictate His goodness, or He is above our present circumstances? Can we believe for good in the next year?

Hosea thought so. He said it this way…

Hosea 10:12 NIV

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12 MSG

Sow righteousness, reap love. It’s time to till the ready earth, it’s time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.

Hosea isn’t asking Israel to sow righteousness because the future looks good. He’s asking them to sow because God is good.  Expectation is never rooted in the soil of circumstances – it’s rooted in the faithfulness of God.

So, Hosea suggests to the nation of Israel, sow righteousness [what is right, what is correct, law, order, justice, and truth] and you’ll reap love. Again, what are your expectations? Your hopes?

[Start planting] In this planter I’m gonna plant tomato and pepper seeds. In my head and heart, I think I’ll plant joy, courage, strength, kindness, hope, and love for 2026.

Managing Expectations

Don’t Lower Them – Redirect Them

There will come a time in your life when you will be tempted to lower your expectations. I suppose this happens for countless reasons: disappointment, frustration, and resentment to name just a few. The problem comes when we no longer see God as faithful and righteous. Eugene Peterson in The Message translation challenges us to “dig in with God”

Hosea 10:12 MSG

Sow righteousness, reap love. It’s time to till the ready earth, it’s time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.

Sadly the rest of the prophecies of Hosea will be negative. “He knows they won’t listen. As a result of their wickedness, the roar of battle will rise against [them]. War will bring devastation on both king and people (10:14–15).[1]

But we have a choice just like the people back then. What will we choose? What are your expectations? The harvest doesn’t depend on Israel’s perfection – it depends on God’s faithfulness.

Remember that God is Able

In another prophetic book of the Old Testament the Word of God through the prophet creates a word picture of a court proceeding in front of the nations to defend the goodness and the power of God. The whole chapter of Isaiah 40 sounds like a lawyer defending the righteousness and the power of God. He will prove that Yahweh alone is truly God and that the gods of the Gentiles are not really gods.

When our expectations are not met, we can begin to flail. Bad relationships from the past begin to look like good ones. Worldly success looks like true success. We begin to trust ourselves instead of God. We surrender to our own appetites and desires instead of pleasing God. These are the gods of our present world. Lowering expectations feels safe, but it’s spiritually dangerous. God never calls His people to expect less – He calls them to expect rightly.

· Unhealthy expectations = God owes me comfort

· Faithful expectations = God will be faithful, righteous, present, and redemptive.

We need to be reminded just like the Israelites were reminded in the time of Isaiah:             

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes

Who are deaf, yet have ears!

Let all the nations gather together,

And let the peoples assemble.

Who among them can declare this,

And show us the former things?

Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,

And let them hear and say, “It is true.

You are my witnesses,” says the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

That you may know and believe me

And understand that I am He.

Before me no god was formed,

Nor shall there be any after me.

I, I am the Lord,[2]

Yahweh alone is able to save His people; he is more powerful than the gods of the nations. Yahweh alone is able to do “a new thing”. Faithful expectation says: God may not give me everything I want, but He will give me what is good.

This has to be the mindset of the believer. It is NOT mind manipulation. It is realigning our thoughts with the truth of the universe. God is faithful, He is true, He is justice, and His love is infinite.

From Poetry to Practice

Some of you are waiting on God to change your year, when God is inviting you to change what you’re planting! I found this poem in Cindy’s grandmother’s Bible many years ago:

Planting Your Spring Garden

By Langston Hughes

For the garden of your daily living: Plant three rows of peas Peace of mind Peace of heart Peace of soul

Plant four rows of squash Squash gossip Squash indifference Squash grumbling Squash selfishness

Plant four rows of lettuce Lettuce be faithful Lettuce be kind Lettuce be patient Lettuce really love one another

No garden is complete without turnips Turnip for meetings Turnip for service Turnip to help one another

To conclude our garden we must have thyme Thyme for each other Thyme for family Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love. There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

I believe that it is time to consider what you are planting! It is my hope that your head has been lighted by faith to have greater expectations.

Great Expectations!

As a church, we refuse to live with low expectations when we have a high and holy God. We must take the direction of Hosea to sow in righteousness and break up the ground. We must dig in with God and trust that a faithful God still brings the spring rains and the fruitful harvests.

There’s something fascinating about seeds that most of us never think about. Some seeds are discovered in ancient places—sealed inside clay jars, buried in ruins, locked away for hundreds…even thousands of years. They look dead. Dry. Forgotten. No green. No life. No movement.

But when scientists carefully place those ancient seeds into the right soil, give them water, light, and time—something unbelievable happens. They grow. Not because the seed was impressive.
Not because the jar was special.
But because life was already inside the seed—just waiting for the right moment.”

“Some of you walked into this room thinking your expectations died a long time ago. Disappointments sealed them away. Prayers that weren’t answered buried them. Seasons of waiting convinced you nothing would ever grow again.

But hear me—your hope wasn’t dead. It was dormant. And a faithful God specializes in bringing life out of what looks forgotten.”

Hosea says, ‘It is time to seek the Lord…until He comes and showers righteousness on you.’
Isaiah reminds us that before Him no god was formed, and after Him none will stand.

That means this:
If God planted the promise, He is faithful to bring the harvest.

So church, don’t throw away the seed.
Don’t lower your expectations.
Don’t give up in the waiting. Plant righteousness.
Dig in with God.
And expect good—because the God who brings the dawn and sends the rain has never failed His people yet.

[1]Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2019), 791.

[2] Driver, John. Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church. Page 117.