ALL WE CAN DO IS KEEP SOWING SEED

Wonderfully weird stuff happens in my ministry.  Great stories of God working arise from time to time.  They keep me grateful.  But sometimes stories like mine do not motivate others to reach out.  Rather, they intimidate others that they could never do those things.

Here's what the latter might not realize.  To effectively catch, a fishing one must do a lot of non-productive fishing. 

Oh I love the stories like being in baseball camp and Loretta Lynn's agent asking me to help her with her depression.  The woman who found my book in the library in Lubbock, checked it out, and was subsequently baptized brings delight to hearers.  The stories roll on.  I am grateful.

But what some may miss is that not everything I do produces.  I recently bought a new car.  I planted seeds for hopeful response toward the salesman....twice.  Nothing.  Not one reaction of interest came back in our conversation.  It went nowhere.

And then the financial officer who took care of the paperwork....I tossed similar worms and hook toward him.  Zero response.  Noisy silence. It was if I didn't say anything.

Today, while writing a check to a salesman for shoes, I planted seed in his direction. No comment.  Nada.  Nothing.

Do I regard my soul winning prowess a failure?  Never.  I plant and water.  God gives the increase.  Regarding any increase I have had the privilege to encounter, it all came from God and never any creative influence I possessed.

All any of us can do is sow seed.  It isn't that we aren't good soul winners that holds us back.  It is the truth that we are to believe that every one we meet will someday want to know God.  Therefore, I sow away.....freely....with great enthusiasm.

Recently I gave a waitress at Cracker Barrel my card.  I told her to put it away in safe hiding.  When the day comes that she finds herself depressed, give me a call.  I expect that might just happen one day five or ten years from now. 

Similar matters have happened in the past like the one I wrote for 9 years with no response, who called one Mother's Day Sunday to tell me she had finally come back to the church after about 20 years.

God works.

We get to believe it.

Maybe one day one of the three above will dial my phone or email me according to the info on the back of my bubble gum card I handed them. 

Sow seed.  Leave the increase up to God.  It will happen.