For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. – Isaiah 61:11

 Today's Scripture Reading (September 10, 2020): Isaiah 61

In nature, there are two basic processes; growth and decline or death. Nature doesn't seem to support the status quo. Staying the same is an impossible task; we either grow or die. The inevitable result of the end of growth is the beginning of death. And it doesn't matter what kind of life about which we are speaking. Whenever the process of growth ends, the process of death begins. Our reality in life is that if you want to keep on living, the trick is to keep on growing. We need to make sure that there are still challenges in our lives that need to be solved. We are created in a way that we need mountains in our lives that have yet to be climbed.

But the other side of this reality is that we have little control over the actual process of growth. Believe it or not, there is no switch on the seed that the farmer uses to turn it on to get the process started. All the farmer can do is set the conditions for growth. He places the seed into the ground, giving it the nutrients that the seed needs to grow. He waters his crops, or he prays for rain so that the seed can begin life. Most gardeners know that there is an eternal battle with weeds that want nothing more than to steal the nutrients away from our precious plants. These thieves need to be removed so that the conditions for growth can be enhanced. But that is about all that that the farmer or the gardener can do.

Isaiah argues that our righteousness and praise is not something that can be manufactured. It is something that grows. Like a seed, it is planted in our lives. We might set the conditions, develop the rituals and practices like regular prayer, and exposing ourselves to the biblical writings, giving the seed fertile ground in which to grow, as well as weeding out harmful habits that might slow the seed's growth. Still, in the end, the growth is left up to God. But we take comfort in the fact that God promises if we do our part, that he will give us the growth.

But the reverse is also true. We can't manufacture the process. We can't leave the seed in the ground of our lives and then just ignore it and expect good things to happen. And at the moment where we begin to take righteousness and praise for granted, the death process begins. And just like a neglected seed in our gardens, it doesn't take long for the things that God has caused to grow in our lives to die. And the result is that we become bitter facsimiles of a religious person, rather than genuine followers of God.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 62