“Growing” without “Knowing”

(Mark 4:26-29 DKJV) And he (Jesus) said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like: it is as if a man throws seed onto the soil, (27) and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seeds germinate and grow up; he doesn’t know how. (28) For the soil produces fruit automatically—first the blade, then the ear, after that the full grain in the ear. (29) But when the fruit is ready, immediately he sends in the sickle (harvester), because the harvest is ready.”

Once Jesus had explained the parable of the sower, he moved on to this parable as a second clarification of how God’s kingdom system works.

Here, we can assume for now that the “soil” this farmer sows into is good soil—soft, no rocks, and no weeds. So this parable has something extra that serious kingdom-seed growers need to be aware of.

Obviously, the principles of seeds, soil, sowing, and harvest have already been covered; so what did Jesus add in this simile?

Unique words and phrases here are:

? “Sleeps and rises night and day”

? “He doesn’t know how”

? “The soil produces fruit automatically”

? “When the fruit/harvest is ready, immediately he sends in the sickle.”

Let’s begin with the third one: the soil—if it is the good, soft, weed-free soil—produces fruit from the seeds “automatically.” Again, this is showing us that God really does want a lot of the laborious work taken out of our lives—the “toil” that came with the curse of Genesis 3. Obviously, preparing the soil, sowing, weeding, and reaping do require our human effort, but apart from them, producing the fruit is “automatic.”

God has designed soil and seeds with their own genius: given the right conditions—including moisture and sunlight—the soil and the seeds combine to produce God’s harvest. This takes us out of the frame for a major part of the process.

Jesus testifies to this when he says that the farmer “sleeps and rises night and day.” He doesn’t have to work or make the process happen; it keeps going when he is awake, and it continues when he is asleep. Of course, he is watching to keep weeds out, and watching for evidence of harvest time.

In this parable, Jesus also emphasizes the duration and process of growing:

(Mark 4:28 DKJV) “For the soil produces fruit automatically—first the blade, then the ear, after that the full grain in the ear.”

Remember, this is Jesus explaining God’s kingdom. God is a king; kings rule by their words (backed with the power of their military and law enforcement etc.). God also rules his kingdom through his words (backed by the power of the Holy Spirit and his angels).

God created the earth to be man’s domain. Yet, he wants his kingdom to extend to the whole earth. God’s kingdom operates through his words: he watches over what he says to perform it (Jer. 1:12). Therefore, to see his kingdom come to earth, his and our objective is to see his words entering man’s domain—and dominating it. This way, God can rule man’s realm—through us. This is what the parables of the kingdom are all about.

According to Jesus’s primary parable, God’s [ruling] words are seeds. However, the only way to turn seeds into fruit is through a sowing, growing, and reaping process. In his supreme ingenuity, God designed our hearts as the soil in which he does this.

To reign here, his word has to dominate. Yet he has designed the system in such a way that the only way this can happen is if his word-seeds grow to harvest through a human heart, then overflow in authoritative expression through human words and actions.

Without growth of his seed to harvest through believer’s hearts, God has no kingdom expression on earth. He is sovereign; he could have done anything he liked in setting up the system, but this is how he has chosen to rule this planet. That is why God is looking for soft available hearts, who will give themselves exclusively to growing his word-seeds to harvest. This is like the exclusivity of marriage; a man and woman give themselves to each other in exclusive intimacy, and commit solely to birthing only his seed through her womb.

Therefore, to serve God effectively, we need constantly to be growing His kingdom word-seeds in the soil of our hearts. This takes time and skillful, diligent husbandry.

However in this parable, Jesus makes a life-changing statement: “He (the farmer) doesn’t know how!” The young husband and wife don’t know either; they don’t know how the single egg fertilized by a single seed grows into a baby. Yet they know how to make one. In a similar way, the farmer doesn’t have to know how the seeds grow in the soil; it is part of the quality that God has built into seeds and soil. The farmer simply follows the time-tested principles of husbandry, and God’s creative genius in the seeds and soil does the rest—automatically.

God designed our hearts and his word to work together like seeds and soil and like sperm and egg, to bring his kingdom harvest to earth. This doesn’t take our intellectual input, much like our physical body can digest food, produce energy, heal itself, and reproduce without our knowing how it does it—and largely without any conscious input from us. God simply wants us to yield our hearts to him for his use.

In a similar way, our intellect may be involved in understanding how and when to prepare soil, sow seeds, remove weeds, and reap the harvest; but it does not have to understand how the seeds actually grow. We need to understand the conditions but not the intricacies; we need to know how to set up the ideal circumstances, but not be concerned about biological mechanisms.

This leaves us with a dilemma; the growth of God’s kingdom in and through our hearts is not primarily an intellectual exercise. Yet, our human intellect is very strong, and likes to be in dominion and run our lives through knowledge. After all, the original temptation that successfully enticed Adam and Eve was through the [tree of the] knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-6).

Today, let's freshly commit to absolute trusting faith—the kind of faith that really does trust God, not self, the intellect, the world's system, or what we can do. Let's take God at his word, swallow it and take it to heart—trusting only ... that he will bring it to pass. So, love that word, depend on it, nurture your belief in it, grow it in your heart through meditation; revolve it in your mind often, picture it while in the secret place with him, and bring it to harvest with patience in a good and noble heart. Mysteriously and automatically it will grow there if you keep off the crows, dig out the rocks, and don't allow any weeds. God bless you.