The Lesson of the Watermelon Plant

There is, in our garden, a watermelon plant that, by all rights, should be dead. We planted it when we planted the squash and the cantaloupe. At the beginning of the season, the squash and the cantaloupe began to grow slowly, but surely. But no matter what we did with the watemelon, it just kept looking more and more sick and unhealthy. It withered up and kept only a few dry leaves. The stem split in two right down the middle near the base of the plant. It didn't matter how much water I gave it. It didn't matter if I let it go a day or two. It looked so pathetic I seriously considered just pulling it and being done with it. But something inside me just kept saying, “Just give it another day. … Water it today...” I felt so sorry for it that I did just that.

Then, out of the blue, it started growing and producing a few flowers. Then it just kept growing and growing, and now it has a good sized watermelon growing. We tried to bind the stem together, but it's still cracked down the middle. The stem is so hard and woody that you wouldn't believe it was alive at all, much less that it was a part of the same plant. Truth is, I have no idea why this plant is still alive, much less why it's bearing fruit. The only explanation I have for it is that God told it to.

I know there's a lesson in this somewhere. There are probably several lessons to learn from it. Not all of our plants have survived. The garlic we planted, which started out well, has completely died. All of them. The chives are barely holding on for dear life. The pepper seeds we planted in nice neat little rows never came up. Those rows are completely barren, and I have no explanation why they didn't at least germinate. But this watermelon plant which looked like it was dead shortly after we planted it is now growing and bearing fruit.

You never know what seeds will grow when you plant them, no matter how much you take care of them. You never know what plants will live, and which will die, and it won't always make sense when they do. It will frustrate you no end to realize that you really have no control over it at all.

We want the seeds of faith to grow where we plant them. We want the people we spend time and care on to grow and bear fruit in the way we want. We want to be able to spread the Gospel and have whole fields of people respond and grow as we water and weed them. Our watermelon plant and our garlic plants say it doesn't work that way. The Scriptures say that one person plants, another waters, but it is God who makes it grow not the person working the garden (see 1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

God makes all plants grow as it pleases Him. Sometimes He chooses to let the plant grow immediately. Sometimes, He chooses for it to not grow at all. Sometimes, He chooses to take mercy on a plant which is almost dead. Sometimes He lets a plant that looked like it was healthy die on its own. We have no control over this. The only thing we can do is keep planting seed, water it, and weed it carefully where it won't hurt the plant's growth.