Are you Toad or Frog?

the following is taken from Neil Cole's book, "Organic Church":
Growth
In Mark 4:26-29, Jesus tells us: “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows- how, he does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

In the children’s book Frog and Toad Together, the garden tells the story of Toad’s adventure of planting seeds to grow a garden. Things begin when Toad appreciates his friend Grog’s fine garden. “Well, yes,” replies Frog, “bit is was hard work.” “I wish I had a garden,” responds Toad. So Grog gives Toad a package of seeds and tells him that if he plants the seeds soon he too can grow a beautiful garden. Toad asks, “How soon?” “Quite soon” is the reply.

Toad plants the seeds and then tells them to start growing, while he stands there waiting for them to appear. When he sees no response, he tells the seeds to start growing, a little louder. Then he shouts at the seeds, commanding them to start growing. Hearing the loud noise, Frog looks over the fence and asks what all the commotion is about. Toad replies, “My seeds won’t grow.”

Frog says, “You’re shouting too much. These poor seeds are afraid to grow!” Toad remarks, “My seeds are afraid to grow?” “Leave them alone for a few days,” answers Frog. “Let the sun shine on them. Let the rain fall on them. Soon your seeds will start to grow.”

Late that night, Toad looks out over his garden and see that nothing has changed. “Drat, my seeds haven’t started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark. I will read the seeds a story, and then they won’t be afraid.”

Over the next couple of days, we see Toad reading the seeds stories, singing songs to them, dancing in the rain for them, and playing tunes for them on the violin, all in a fruitless effort to coax the seeds to grow on his timetable. One night, in a fit of exhaustion, Toad remarks, “Oh what shall I do? These seeds must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world.” He collapses in sleep from the fatigue of trying to entertain the seeds nonstop for several days.

He is awakened the next day by a jubilant Frog saying, “Toad, Toad, wake up! Look at your garden.”
“Oh at last my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow.”
“And now,” replies Frog, “you’ll have a nice garden, too.”
“Yes, but you were right, Frog,” remarks Toad, wiping the sweat from his brow. “it was very hard work.”

Many of us are like Toad. We are spending our lives singing, dancing, and telling stories to dirt, trying to make the seeds grow. In the end, we conclude that making seeds grow is hard work.

Jesus described the works as casting out seed, going to bed at night, and rising in the day. The soil produces the growth “all by itself.”

As I read this parable, I recognize two things that need to be addressed. First, we are all qualified to do the work, and the work is not really so hard. Second, we frequently expend our energy and resources in the wrong phase of ministry life.

I Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow.”

-Ethan Wiekamp