The Godhead Creates

Way back at the time of Creation, God issued a decree: reproduction according to kind. This means canaries produce canaries, whales produce whales, corn produces corn and people produce people. Elementary.

The orderliness of this law is such that in His time in the flesh, Jesus could ask rhetorically, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" (Matthew 7:16).

Even in our day, we find this natural law so, well, natural, that even the least educated person wouldn't expect to raise strawberries with pine seed, nor would he expect a hummingbird to hatch from ostrich eggs.

Like produces like. Can you think of any exceptions? Neither can I. Like produces like. That's just the way things work. Because God said so.

In a sense, nobody needs to tell us that Canadian thistles will always produce Canadian thistles, and will never produce horses, salmon or even dandelions. Not very far into the process of living we just learn things like that. And we don't really need to be reminded of such facts.

However, there is a spiritual application here for which we need frequent reminders. My values, my thoughts, my actions, my words, my motives, my ambitions--all these also reproduce after their kind.

What shall I do when my thoughts are less than noble? What shall I do when they get stuck in bitterness, lust, mistrust, vindictiveness, self-pity and all their unkempt kin? Think nobly! Sure, as in a garden, the weedy thoughts need to be yanked out and refused nourishment and refuge. But also, as in a garden, the good thoughts need to be sown and tended with careful persistence.

Do you want to be encouraged? Do you want to be an encourager? Then determine what kinds of seed produce encouragement...and plant those seeds at every turn! I challenge you to bring several samples of these seeds to your Sunday School class. You can surely encourage each other to be(come) encouragers.

Sometimes we get tired of tending the good seeds and attacking the weeds...because it seems the only thing we harvest from our gardens is weeds. In the course of several weeks, the most we got out of our garden were weeds by the wheelbarrow loads! Furthermore, some corn, beans and potatoes needed to be replanted. Let me tell you, we garden for more than the pleasure of poking seeds in the soil and weeds in the wheelbarrow! But we stuck it out...and now we eat beets, beans, carrots and cucumbers from our garden.

The same is true in the gardens of our lives and the lives of others. So let's encourage ourselves with this truth from today's lesson: Like produces like. Always. So, "let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Galatians 6:9).

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