Tired of 'plodding along' in ministry?

There is a reason why Paul reaches for farming when he wants to describe what faithful ministry looks like. Not architecture, not conquest, not business, not a product launch – farming.

"The hardworking farmer," he writes to Timothy, "ought to have the first share of the crops" (1 Timothy 2v6). And to the Corinthians, pushing back on a church already obsessed with cliques and celebrity: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" (1 Corinthians 3v6).

The image is deliberate. Farming is slow and patient and repetitive. Farming is almost entirely invisible – seeds underground, roots spreading in the dark, growth happening in ways no eye can see, until suddenly, working to its own timeline, something quietly breaks the surface.