My wife, Barbara, tells me of a beautiful blooming spreading vine that grew out of a tiny crack in a sidewalk in downtown Portland, Oregon. Here at the house, we have a volunteer purple petunia plant that has been growing and blooming under an oak tree all summer long. I told her the other day, I need to catch some of those seeds and sow them in a bed across the front of our house for season long beauty. I have seen plants growing out of cracks in rocks that were obviously working over a period of time to break the rock in pieces and change the face of the earth.
Our words are like seeds. With our words we can make people mad, sad, or glad. We can separate friends or make friends. We can build people or we can tear them down. It is amazing how that with receiving one sincere compliment in a timely fashion, your attitude and self-esteem and your whole day can be turned around for the good. With our words we can plant and harvest good things or we can plant and harvest bad things. We do need to keep in mind, that we will harvest what we plant. The Word of God says death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it, who have affection for it and who pay attention to it, will eat the fruit thereof (Proverbs 18:21). The implication is that if you want life and good things instead of death and bad things, then pay attention to your tongue. If there is such power in what we as mere people say, how much more inherent power is in what God says! He has been gracious enough to work through human vessels to give us Jesus, who is called the Word, and to give us a written book, the Bible, so we can have his words to hide in our heart. Through faith in and by the declaration of God’s Word, the power of God is released in and around us by his Spirit.
God’s Word sown can bring beauty in hard places. It can spiritually “break the rock in pieces” and bring new life and healing where there is death and sickness (Jeremiah 23:29). But without the sowing, there is no growing. The key is to pay attention to sow the Word of God in our hearts and in our lives and enjoy the beauty thereof.