Being from a large city, I hadn’t had much opportunity to garden.

Perhaps because of that, when I moved to where I could plant things at my leisure, there was an interest, almost a lure towards the phenomenon of burying a speck and retrieving a bushel.

Gardens surround my house and with them comes lots of planting. From these planting experiences came the basic but true lesson: if I buried lots of seed “specks,” I got lots of bushels in return.

In fact, to my delight, sometimes I even discovered vines developing in places other than the original planting spot. They had climbed or run aground and popped up elsewhere, giving me even more plants than I had initially planted.

I have found the same to be true in other aspects of my life. The more I pour into a person or a project, the more I tend to get out of them. In fact, trails of unexpected blessings emerge that can be traced back to an initial selfless act done at a different time or place.

This also holds true for my experience with God. The time I have invested in developing a real relationship with Him is a mere speck compared to the torrents of benefits that bless me as a result!