Planting Seeds

Last week we had the very highly esteemed Reverend Paul V. Webb (from the huge metropolis of Brighton in that great country of Canada) as our accomplished professor here at ZMI. He was teaching the Pastoral Epistles: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. I think I can almost say that it is pretty close to being my number one class so far. I got so much out of this class mostly through his analogies, stories, anecdotes, and comparisons. He is an amazingly gifted teacher and I am so blessed to have been one of his students.

The main theme that he brought out in the week was the thought of seeds. He told us how he had just recently moved (January) and when he was cleaning out the garage he found packets of seeds that he had never planted. Did he find full grown fruit in the garage? NO! Why not? The answer may seem obvious, but it was because he had not planted the seeds. He likened our class to a packet of seeds. Last week was a packet, this week is a packet, next week is a packet, etc. The amount of fruit we receive from a class is dependent on us. Are we going to plant our seeds? Are we going to cultivate them and fertilize them? Will we give them time to grow to maturity in our lives?

Seeds have an expiry date on them. If we don’t plant them in the garden, they get old and very likely may not produce any fruit. Truths from ZMI are like that. They have an expiry date. If we neglect them and put them on the shelf and never plant them, they will grow old and we eventually forget about them and they will not bring forth any fruit in our lives. On the last day of class Pastor Paul bought each one of us a packet of seeds to be a visual reminder to us of what God spoke this week to us; a visual reminder to not put the seeds of truth on the shelf, but to plant them. This analogy really struck home in my heart.

The Pastoral Epistles are very encouraging and there are many truths that we can apply to our personal lives- we don’t have to be pastors to glean truths from those words. It was neat because God confirmed the words that I wrote in my last blog post. Paul encouraged Timothy several times about remembering his call and remembering what was spoken to him through prophecy. I was greatly encouraged.

Seven of us students were in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada for an outstation at my church over the weekend. We had a wonderful gym night with the youth on Saturday night. Afterwards we ‘cultured’ Maria, Adrienne, and Hannah- gave them a good dose of MZAK culture and customs (a.k.a. sitting and chatting at Coffee Culture). Sunday morning was a real blessing to me. Chris led worship and I played the piano. God was so good. I was very nervous, but more at peace than I expected to me and Chris said that he felt it was very anointed so PRAISE THE LORD! Emmanuel preached a very anointed message that was so encouraging to me personally. The worship and the message flowed very well together and that is always neat- thats when you know you’ve heard from the Lord.

Of course, what is a trip to Canada with no Timmies? Nothing… that’s why I had four of them 🙂 They were delicious, but I think I had a caffeine overload. Had a wonderful trip home with the last hour filled with singing many praise and worship songs. It was an excellent way to ascend Mt. Zion! We had safe driving, wonderful weather, and over all it was a great experience. God is good 🙂

~Alyssa~