Go faster stripes

Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God, who is making things grow. (1 Cor 3:6). I have never been very much interested in cars but a friend I grew up with, he was much more of a boy racer than I have ever been. He learned to drive pretty soon after his seventeenth birthday and got use of the family car – a Morris minor, if that means anything to you. It was a green colour and he proceeded to stick a yellow trim all around it to jazz it up a bit and get it into the nineteen-seventies somehow. I remember him saying they were “go faster” stripes. Now, I am a little bit thick and so he thought it was worth trying to see if I would believe that the car could go faster with these yellow strips stuck on it. I was quite drawn but even I can see that it is the engine that makes the difference in a car not some yellow decals that you bought at Halford's.

Now, in a similar way, though not in exactly the same way it should be said, what counts in the end is God. He is the one who makes things grow. A farmer may boast about his bumper crop but he should be careful to remember that it is God who makes things grow. Someone who wants to have a large family may talk merrily about having six kids, three of each, but they need to remember that it is God who decides all that. And church planters and pastors must work very hard indeed in evangelism and in building the people up but they must also remember that it is God who makes things grow. He is the one who converts and sustains his own. It all depends on him.