There's just something about planting a seed and watching it come up.  As far back as I can remember, we would start out plants for the garden in little peet-pots in an area on the back porch that my father had covered with plastic.  The aroma generated by the warm water soaked into the peet takes me way back. 

I would run out to the 'greenhouse' every day because I wanted to be the first one to see the sprouts.  If saw them, I would run back to my father and tell him what was up.  You would have thought I had caused them to sprout, because I was so proud.

It's no wonder that pagan religions felt the way they did about spring.  They saw winter as the death of their gods and spring as when they were reborn.  Although they missed the mark on who God really is, what they did see was the plants whither, and then the seed would die, only to give life brand new. 

Jesus even uses the seed in a parable to explain how one must allow their life to 'die' (in the spiritual sense, of course) in order for life to spring forth. 

Now, when people drive by and see some of us bent over out in the lawn here at the building, they may think we've lost something.  But in reality, we are finding the little juvenile bluebonnets all over the place - the ones we planted last fall. 

We are now watching how they grow and anticipate the bloom. 

Hmmm.  I wonder if God looks at us in a similar way?

jas