It’s planting season. No doubt about it…spring has sprung.

The grass is deep green. Trees are leafing out. Daffodils, tulips, and lilacs are splashing color across the landscape. The birds are singing their hearts out.

And right on cue, farmers and gardeners everywhere are… complaining.

It’s too warm.

It’s too cold.

Too wet.

Not enough rain.

Too early.

Too late.

“I should’ve sold last week…”

“I wish I’d waited until this week…”

On and on it goes.

And truth be told, there’s probably a little truth in all of it. We all want to get it right—at just the right time. But there’s an old saying in the farming community I’ve never forgotten:

“You can’t grow a crop in the bag.”

A seed left in the bag will never germinate.

Never grow.

Never produce.

Never reveal what it was created to be.

Every farmer and backyard gardener knows the risks—crop failure, poor growth, uncertain outcomes. They live with all the “too’s.”

But one thing is certain: If you never put the seed in the ground… you will never have a harvest.

Here’s the encouragement for today:

We’re a lot like those seed bags—full of possibility.

Jesus spoke of this often:

The sower scattering seed…

The soils receiving it…

The talents entrusted and returned…

And then He said it as plainly as it can be said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” —John 12:24 (ESV)

At some point, the seed has to leave the bag.

We’ve all heard the question, “What’s in your wallet?”

Today, I’ll ask it a little differently—

What’s in your bag? And what are you going to do with it?

Jarvis… from soil to soul