You'd Be Surprised What Grows In The Winter

This week, Miami experienced record-breaking cold temperatures. I’ll tread lightly on my complaints about the weather because I know most people actually live where winter is a real season. For us in Miami, winter visits occasionally, but this week felt different. I did a quick google search and said it hadn’t been this cold in about 15 years. In my 12 years of living here, I’ve never experienced cold like this.

(Remind me to never move to a place with a real winter again)

I’ve lived through my fair share of winters.

Growing up in Brooklyn, I remember walking to the subway unable to feel my hands or toes. Winter always felt like a season I was waiting to end. People want winter to end so badly that we created a holiday, Groundhog Day just to predict whether spring will come early or if winter will last longer.

Winter always felt like something to survive but that perspective changed a year ago after a conversation with a waiter at a local farm to table restaurant in upstate New York.

He walked me through the menu and described every vegetables grown on the property, and after each one he said:

“You’d be surprised what grows in the winter.”

He encouraged me to go out and see for myself. The next morning, I walked the property and saw it for myself, carrots, kale, garlic, Brussels sprouts, collard greens — life growing in what I thought was a lifeless season.

God used agriculture to give me a prophetic picture: things can grow even in seemingly unfavorable seasons.

Around that same time, the Lord anchored my heart to the verse I shared last month in Ezekiel 47:12 — that trees planted by God’s river would bear fruit every month. Not just in ideal conditions.

That word carried me through the year.

A few months ago, I went back to that same restaurant and guess who was my waiter?

I couldn’t believe it, I never expected to see him again, and he had no idea that our quick exchange had impacted my year so deeply. At the end of my meal, I told him that he didn’t know it but he inspired me. I told him to go on YouTube and search:

You’d Be Surprised What Grows in the Winter I Pastor Manouchka Charles I Social Dallas

I offered no details. I didn’t tell him I was a preacher or that I was probably shouting for 75% of the message. I just let him go in blind. The next day when I returned, he asked to seat me in his section. He told me the message impacted him even though he didn’t come from a religious background, he planned on watching it again. With tears in his eyes he shared his life and story with me and It was one of those full-circle moments only God can orchestrate.

In that message, I shared one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned:
it’s exciting to hear a promise like “you’ll bear fruit in every season,” but to have fruit in every season, you must sow seeds in every season.

If we want to produce in every season, we must sow intentionally.

Seeds to Sow in Every Season

These are seeds we can sow no matter what season we’re in:

Seeds of Time
Time with God. Time with people. Time developing what God placed in you.
Time is never wasted when it’s sown.

Seeds of the Word
Scripture planted in your heart grows even when you can’t see it working.

Seeds of Gratitude
Gratitude shifts your perspective from what’s missing to what God is doing.

Seeds of Praise
Praise changes atmospheres and it is a key into the presence of God.

Seeds of Tears
God wastes nothing. Even grief can become harvest in His hands. What you sow in tears, you will reap in joy 

What seeds is God inviting you to sow in this seasont?

One Thought

You’d be surprised what God can grow in unexpected seasons. 

One Verse

“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.” — Psalm 126:5