Episode #71 Surrendering Control – Seed Sowing Summer

Hi, I'm Jen and welcome to Good God Talks. We are talking today about surrendering to God's work in our lives, and the way that we can trust him for the fruitfulness or the harvest that will come. And I know for me, oftentimes that waiting period of trusting God, can be difficult.

Especially if it feels like that growth is taking longer to come, then I would like it to. But whether I'm talking about things that I'm trying to instill in my kids or growth in my business, or fruitfulness in my spiritual formation, or in my ministry, God is fully trustworthy, and we can surrender that control over to him. We can trust God to be the one to make things grow.

Sometimes that struggle I experience really just comes because I'm trying to ascribe to the Lord what success is to look like. I want my fruitfulness to look exactly like someone else's. I want success to be in this way or with this type of visibility or with this type of thing that comes along with it. But the fruitfulness that we're offered in the Lord doesn't often ascribe to society standards or our own preferences. It also often doesn't ascribe to our own timelines. But God is clear prolifically throughout his word, that he is faithful, that his word doesn't return void. That he will bring things into fruitfulness, that he won't be mocked. That we will reap what we sow, that we can sow generously and reap generously. And we've been talking about those things in the context of this podcast series, but today we're talking specifically about how God is the one who makes things grow.

There are times in my life when I can be concerned about the growing process or I can want the growing to happen in a different way or at a quicker speed than it is, but I can trust that God is the one who makes a thing grow. I do my part and the Lord will do his part and I can release that to him. I can trust him with it.

In 1 Corinthians Paul is teaching and he's talking about different leaders in the New Testament church. There were some grumbles amongst believers as some were following Apollos, some were following Paul, and this is Paul's response to that. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9,

"What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building."

We are God's field and God gives the growth. We can trust him to do his part while we each walk out the part that he has entrusted to each of us.

And then in Philippians 1:6. It says,

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

We can trust God to do his part. And so, if you're in a season where you wish you were seeing greater growth or more immediate fruitfulness, I want to encourage you: you can trust God and his timing. You can trust God to nurture the seeds that are being planted, and you can ask God to remind you of your part, to give you indications of what He's doing and to show you how he is causing things to grow. We can surrender to God's work knowing that he will carry things through to completion, that he's always faithful to his part.

We can trust God's timing, if you're in a place of feeling discouraged, I encourage you, bring that to God. And here's our question for him today.

God, I trust you. What does it look like to trust you in this area?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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