Summary
Confident Waiting
No one enjoys waiting—not in checkout lines, not on hold, and certainly not when a perplexing problem refuses to resolve. Yet waiting is woven into the Christian life, and one of the hardest forms of waiting is waiting for the reign and rule of God to take hold in the heart of someone we love. The parable of the growing seed in Mark 4:26-29 speaks directly to this kind of waiting and teaches us how to do it with confidence rather than anxiety.
Jesus begins by reframing what the kingdom of God actually is. His hearers expected a visible, political kingdom—a restoration of Israel to the glory of David and Solomon. Jesus corrects that expectation. As he says elsewhere, "the kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed... for in fact the kingdom of God is among you" Luke 17:20-21. The kingdom is the reign and rule of God in the heart, and a person becomes a citizen of that kingdom through faith. That is what grows when the seed is sown.
Notice what is absent from the farmer in the parable: fretting. He doesn't pace the field, dig up the seed to inspect it, or blame himself for slow germination. He scatters the seed and then "sleeps and rises night and day," and the seed sprouts and grows—"he knows not how." This is precisely where we are tempted to go wrong. Having sown the gospel into a loved one's life, we second-guess our words, replay missed opportunities, and try to pry faith out of the soil ourselves. We doubt the seed. The parable gently strips all that away. The growth is not our project; it is God's hidden work.
This is a freeing word, because the power belongs to the seed and to the One who sends it. Through Isaiah, God promises, "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose" Isaiah 55:10-11. Paul says the same thing about ministry: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" 1 Corinthians 3:6-7. Peter reminds us that we have been "born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God" 1 Peter 1:23. And Paul insists that faith does not rest on polished delivery but on "a demonstration of the Spirit and of power" 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. Our role is to sow; the harvest is God's.
All of this rests on what Christ has already done. He went to the cross and bore our sin—every thought, word, and deed, all we have done and left undone. The tomb is empty, the sacrifice accepted, and in the waters of baptism we have been claimed as his own. From that settled freedom we can sow without panic, knowing the same Lord who saved us is at work in those for whom we pray.
So what is there to do while we wait? Live in the freedom of being seed-sowers rather than harvest-makers. Keep planting the gospel. Sleep at night. Trust the word that does not return void. One day, in heaven, we will see the full extent of what God has been doing through the centuries—much of it hidden from us now. Until then, the parable steadies us: the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how. And in that confidence, we wait.
Video citations
- Waiting - "Confidant Waiting" 2-8-26 — Would you open your Bible's please with me to mark the fourth chapter for our time and God's Word if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you'll find the fourth chapter of Mark on page 33…