A Windowsill And A Bit Of Concrete

A windowsill and about four slabs of concrete.

That is the whole of it. You have described it to people in exactly those words, and you have noticed that you always describe it in a particular way, with a small laugh in the middle and a shrug at the end.

You have never once said the word garden about it without something attached to the front.

Only a. Just a. Not really a.

And I want to take those words off it, and that is the entire business of this article.

You are standing in a garden, and a sill and four slabs have never once needed a qualifier in front of them.

Let me say why the qualifier matters, because it looks like modesty and it is doing something else.

A qualifier is a defense. It gets in before anybody can measure the thing, and it says: I know. I have already assessed it. Nobody needs to tell me.

And what it protects against is being caught valuing something that somebody else might rank low.

But look at the price. It means you cannot simply enjoy it. Every time it comes up, a small disclaimer runs first, and a person who has to disclaim a thing before mentioning it is not free to love it plainly.

The least of all seeds

There is a parable in Matthew where Jesus names a size, and He does not soften it.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds. (Matthew 13:31 and 32, King James Version)

Which indeed is the least of all seeds.

Now, notice that He says it. He does not avoid the smallness. He does not say the seed is smaller than it looks, or that size is not what matters, which is what a person trying to be encouraging would have said.

He names it as the least, plainly, and moves on.

You are looking at a parable that states the smallness outright and never once apologizes for it, and the least of a category has never been a thing Scripture felt awkward about. Matthew 13:31 says which indeed is the least of all seeds, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a plain statement of size land on a woman with four slabs and a sill.

And here is the difference between what He does and what you do.

He says least. He does not say only. There is no qualifier in His sentence, no protective phrase, no getting in first. It is a plain measurement stated by somebody entirely comfortable with it.

You are able to state a size without defending it, and an accurate measurement has never once needed a word like only in front of it. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a fact be said without a shield attached, and the written word names the least of all seeds and puts nothing protective anywhere near it.

And notice what the seed is compared to. The kingdom of heaven.

The smallest thing in the list is what He reaches for when He wants a picture of the largest thing there is. The smallness is not an obstacle He is working around. It is the specific quality He chose it for.

You are holding the exact kind of thing He reached for on purpose, and a small thing has never once been chosen despite its size in that parable. The Spirit of God is the one who selected the least of the seeds to describe the kingdom, and the word puts the two side by side without any strain in it.

What is actually out there

Let me describe your garden back to you plainly, with no qualifiers, because I do not think anybody has.

There is a windowsill with growing things on it, arranged by you, which get looked at daily and watered by hand.

There is a step with four slabs and pots standing on them, which you walk between when you go out, which change through the year, and which you know the state of at any given moment.

That is a garden. Not a small garden. Not a garden of sorts. That is the thing itself, complete, being tended by a person who knows what is in it.

You are describing something complete rather than something partial, and a tended space has never once been a draft of a bigger one. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a thing be finished as it stands, and Matthew 13:31 states the size and then declines to treat it as a limitation.

And here is what you have that most large gardens do not, and it is not a consolation, it is a fact about scale.

You know all of it. Every plant. What state each one is in this week, whether it needs anything, what it did last month. Nobody with a large garden knows their garden that way. There is too much of it and the knowing is spread thin.

You are in a position to know the whole of what you have, and a space small enough to hold in the mind has never once been the lesser kind of garden. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a knowing that only comes with proximity, and the written word chose the least of the seeds when it wanted to picture something vast.

One thing where you pass it

So here is the assignment, and it is simple because the work of this article was the words rather than the doing.

Put one growing thing on the sill or the step where you will pass it daily.

One more, or the first one if the sill is bare. The specification is only that you will go past it as part of an ordinary day.

You are able to put one thing exactly where your day already goes, and something placed on a route has never once needed anybody to remember it. Matthew 13:31 names the least of all seeds and puts it straight into a field, and the Holy Spirit is the one on that step while a woman sets something down.

Where you pass it is the whole specification and it is not sentimental.

A plant on a route gets seen ten times a day and gets watered without any decision. A plant somewhere sensible but off the route gets remembered on Thursdays and gets watered when it is already too late.

The route is the watering system. That is all it is.

You are arranging things so that the care happens on its own, and a plant on a path has never once depended on somebody being reliable. The Holy Spirit is the one present in an arrangement that holds without effort, and the word puts the smallest seed straight into the ground rather than somewhere it would be safe.

And the other half of the assignment, which is the real one: the next time somebody asks, say the word without anything in front of it.