Seed Multiplication

The weather is wet and rainy this week. It is a good time to plant some more seeds in the garden. Come on—you can practice your math while you help me! Here, you can carry the seeds and I’ll get a trowel to make the furrows.

Wow! There is sure a lot of seeds in this container. What are they? you ask. Those are Swiss chard seeds that I saved. They are lumpy because they have more than one seed inside. How many? you ask. Let’s open one and see. Carefully we break off the crumbly edges and open the seed. There are two, and they are shiny! you say.

Great. You can count by two as you put them in this furrow I made. Two, four, six, you count, as you plant the seeds. As we finish the row we count together: 54, 56, 58, 60! That’s a lot of Swiss chard! you say, as we pat the soil back over them. Yes, but that is only the beginning—each seed is going to multiply a lot more. Do you know how? When it makes more seeds! you say. How many can one plant make? I haven’t counted, but it is more than a hundred because I filled this whole container from one plant. Do you want to count and see? That will be too hard! you say. We’ll count just the amount that fits into a teaspoon. Then we can multiply to find out how many would fill the container. Thirty seeds fill up the teaspoon! you say. Good—we’ll figure the rest on paper together. Multiply 30 by 3, to see how many seeds would be in a tablespoon. Now we’ll multiply that by 16, because that is how many tablespoons would fill the container. Wow! That is a lot! you say.

Just think, one seed has multiplied more than one thousand times! God made seeds to be amazing packages of life that just makes more and more and more. The Bible tells us that God’s Word is like a seed. Remember how Jesus told about the farmer planting seeds? Yes, some got eaten by birds, and some got choked by weeds, you say. But some grew in good soil and produced a wonderful harvest. That shows us what happens when God’s Word is planted in our hearts. We planted Swiss Chard today because I want to grow them to eat this summer. But if I just kept the seeds in the container, would they grow? No, they need to be in the soil, you say. That’s right. And God’s Words in the Bible are just like a container full of seeds. We need to put them in our hearts and believe them before they will grow.

Let’s think about it. Do you have a Bible verse you have memorized? I know, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right,”* (Ephesians 6:1) you say. Do you believe that is true? Yes, you nod. Good. If you keep it in your heart and protect it from bad attitudes and lazy habits that want to creep in, it will grow. And not just grow, but multiply and fill your life with blessings! Why don’t you try it and see?