Planting

THUR., APR. 12, 1984, 6:49 AM
FARM, STUDY

The ground is ready, and you certainly should do some planting today, o son. Without planting now you shall have no garden in the summer months, and that is a pleasure… and a frustration… you should have. The seeds are in packages, each with a potential for life, but they remain in that suspended state of potential until you become the planter. The value of seeds cannot be realized without the planting.

Planting is not an arduous process, so I wonder (and so do you) why you have a hard time getting yourself into the planting process. It is a happy process, when you get into it, but, yes, there can be deterrents, like the shower that is falling now. Will this prevent you from doing what I suggest you must do today? Perhaps. Or perhaps it shall be just a minor irritant to you and a help to the sprouting of seeds.

In a sense you were planted, for I purposefully set your soul and spirit within this physical structure for growth and development. The central purpose of your life… in common with all lives… is, of course, to grow in spirit, which is done best in relationship with Me. The “ground” in which I “set” you was fertile and rather free of the many deterrents there can be to productive, spiritual growth. You have developed well… somewhat too individualistic and self-centered, but these characteristics, which generally work against spiritual growth, I have used. The written pages of meditative Teachings exist because you are willing and able to spend this time with Me, rather than with others. I even have used your selfish muses as an ingredient in the development of the process. I have planted, and you are producing.

As you plant flower seeds you shall expect flowers of a certain sort in the months of summer. Still, each flower is not identical, and some may develop somewhat differently than you expect. So it is with those I plant. I know the potential, and I can influence the process, but the details of each life are not determined by Me, but by the growth process. You could have been somewhat different than you are now, but not radically so.

As I teach you I am planting ideas and concepts… or I am providing nourishment for ideas and truths that I have planted previously. There are other influences, certainly, some abetting that which I exert and some which are counter-influences. You wait to see whether the hunger of small animals is a force greater than your nurturing for the young fruit trees. Some of what you plant shall be consumed by hungry insects. There are obstacles to growth in every instance of planting. Yet, as I have told you, spiritual growth is not bound by the conditions of plant growth… and yet it is not certain, either.

Spirit may grow, even in conditions of adversity. The conditions that would prevent a plant from growing or that would alter or stunt its growth… conditions like these may not deter the growth of spirit. However, in ideal conditions, where a plant would flourish certainly, a spirit may moulder and even diminish. You cannot make each seed grow to its fullness of size and production, and neither can I force any soul to grow. I have seen many people “come to the altar” (in many forms) and give their lives to Me… and then they wander away.