John 4:35-38, 1 Corinthians 3:5-9

Carl Belcher

"What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe- as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour. For we are God's fellow-workers; you are God's field, God's building." 1 Corinthians 3:5-9

I don't know about you, but I always struggle to concentrate when ever I hear someone talking about these sort of verses. My mind wanders and I start thinking about Alan Titchmarsh or the presenters of Ground Force. I always feel more than a little jealous at their ability to lob some pathetic looking plant cutting into the greenhouse or garden and then.. lo and behold five weeks later it's producing a bumper crop of carrots. Not only that, they're the sort of veggie's that have rosettes pinned to them and find their way into the Guinness Book of Records.

I think the reason why I'm so jealous is that plants tend not to 'thrive' after I've touched them. In fact it would be fair to say that rather than having 'green fingers' I possess a finely tuned kiss-of-death plant ministry. Take the word 'weed-killer', replace the word 'weed' with the words 'anything-green' and I think you have the picture.

I am very good however at turning the ground over with a fork. I'm also quite good at picking apples and blackcurrants. (I also excel in eating the picked fruit of course!)

It's just the actual 'growing' aspect that I seem to lack the skills in, but after reading Paul's letter to the church in Corinth I am feeling quite hopeful.

Now obviously the apostle isn't talking about how to grow your 5-a-day here. He's writing a letter to them because amongst other things some of them are falling out with one another over who's the best apostle! Like some sort of primitive apostle-idol competition some are saying "I follow Paul" while others are saying "Well, I follow Apollos". You can almost hear Paul banging his head on the table as this news reaches him. He makes it clear to them that he and Apollos were just doing what God had instructed each of them to do. It doesn't matter who was 1st on the scene, the most important thing is that as a result of both of them simply doing what God had asked of them, the people came to believe in Jesus.

I have come to love the verse Paul writes next; "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow."

The reason why I love it so much is that it frees me up. I sometimes get overwhelmed with the responsibility to see my friends, family and work colleagues discover Jesus for themselves. I pray that their hearts and minds might be receptive and ready to receive the truth, I look for opportunities to share what He's doing in my life at this moment in time, I try and think of creative ways in which I can show God's love in action and look for opportunities of the gospel being explained in ways they can understand. All of this stuff is definitely worth doing and I'm not about to give up but, when they don't fall on their knees declaring "What must I do to be saved?" I can quite easily go into a state of mild depression and panic.

The truth of the matter though is that whilst God might occasionally choose to use just me to bring someone all the way from A to Z, (A = God sucks and so do you, Z = Jesus is no 1 in my life) most of the time he wants to use me to simply bring someone from A to E or V to Z. At the end of the day all I can do is plant the seed, or water the seed. It is God's job to make it grow. In fact it's only God that can make it grow. When you allow that truth to sink into your spirit, you can stop false guilt and responsibility from messing with your mind and get on with the part that God's called you to do.

My prayer today is "whether you use me to sow, water or reap, please let it grow Lord and may you be the one who gets all the credit."