From the Pastor's Desk

The August Garden

Brisbane mornings in August are cold. Most mornings sit in single digits — five or six degrees Celsius! Look out at the garden and everything seems finished. The leaves have fallen. The branches stand bare. The ground lies hard. "Nothing is happening here," our eyes tell us.

But our eyes are not telling us the whole truth.

At that very moment, beneath that soil, roots are quietly lengthening. Bulbs are dividing and multiplying. Buds formed last autumn are slowly swelling. The wattles have already begun to break into yellow.

The work is going on. We simply cannot see it — that is all.

Not Past the Cold — Through It

This is not merely a metaphor. It is botanical fact.

Wheat, apples, tulips, cherries — many plants like these will not flower at all unless they have passed through a sustained period of cold. Keep them permanently warm and they will grow, they will stay green — but they will not bloom. Scientists call this vernalisation.

The cold is not an obstacle to flowering; it is the precondition for it.

The plant does not bloom despite the winter. It blooms through it.

The Earth Bringeth Forth Fruit of Herself

One of the parables Jesus told appears in Mark's Gospel alone. It is this:

"So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself."
— Mark 4:26-28

The Greek word rendered "of herself" is αὐτομάτη (automatē) — the root from which the English word automatic comes.

What does the farmer do in this parable? He sows. Then he sleeps. He rises. He sleeps again.

The seed does not germinate because he is watching it. It does not grow faster because he is anxious. His worry adds nothing whatever to that growth.

Growth is happening — but it is not his work.

Hidden Work — The Witness of Scripture

This pattern returns again and again throughout Scripture.

• Job 14:7-9— "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant."
• Colossians 3:3— "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." The Greek here is κέκρυπται — a perfect tense, meaning hidden once and hidden still. Hiddenness is not a defect; it is a settled condition.
• Isaiah 43:19— "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."
• Luke 2:52— "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Thirty years at Nazareth. Thirty years of silence before three years of ministry. Even in our Lord's own life, the hidden season was ten times the longer.

The Season In Between

Many of us know this place well.

Six months have passed — and the grief has still not lifted. We have prayed for years — and the answer still has not come. The marriage is still cold. The child is still distant. The work has still not come. Health has still not returned.

The great temptation in this place is this: to conclude that because we cannot see it, nothing is happening.

In counselling ministry I have seen a well-documented pattern borne out. People rarely leave at the beginning, and rarely at the end. It is in the middle that they leave — at the point where the first hope has worn thin and visible progress seems to have stopped. Yet very often that is precisely the moment when the real work is going on underneath.

Just like the garden.

Waiting Is One Thing; Avoiding Is Another

A word of caution is necessary here.

Seen from above, a dormant seed and a dead seed look exactly the same. Both appear identical. We must therefore learn to tell them apart.

• Waiting — standing in the confidence that God is at work.
• Avoiding — hoping that if a thing is left unattended it will sort itself out.

Sometimes the faithful response is not patience but to receive help. You may approach your pastor. You may approach a doctor, or a counsellor. In such moments what you need is a safe place.

"Be patient" is not always the spiritual answer. Sometimes it is escape.

If you do not know whether what you are in is dormancy, or whether something is genuinely dying — please speak. Speak to us. Do not decide alone.

Our Church Is in This Same Season

Vaarthai Evangelical Church Inc is still young. To those looking on from outside, this may seem slow.

But the roots are going down — in a place where no one can count them.

We need not hurry. We are not the ones who sowed; nor are we the ones who make it grow.

August is the last month of our winter. Spring begins on the first of September.

We are not at an ending — we are at a turning.

"11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; 12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."
— Song of Solomon 2:11-12

Our gardens are not showing it yet. But it is already true. You are blessed!

God bless you!

Pastor Weslyn

Ps. Jeyakaran Weslyn

Senior Pastor, Vaarthai Evangelical Church Inc