I’m no biologist, but I know a few basic things about plants: If it’s not growing, then it’s dying. I can at least keep cacti alive, and I know that although they tend to grow slowly, if I keep them watered and get them enough light then they will indeed grow. I have a few that I keep at work that I began from little buds from some of Angela’s mom’s cacti a few years ago. Now they have about quadrupled in size. Slowly but surely. However, had I not kept them watered and lit, not only would they not have grown, but they would have died.

So it is with us spiritually. If we’re not growing, we’re dying.

But individual growth is not the end of the nature metaphor. Even those of us, like me, who barely eeked by in 9th grade physical science know another thing that is true regarding a species: If it’s not multiplying, then it’s going extinct. The same cacti that I’ve managed to keep alive have not only grown in size, they have also produced little buds of their own. I could cut one off, root it, and replant it, beginning the whole process yet again. An on and on and on. And imagine for a moment that the cacti I have are the only ones left on the planet: Try as I may to keep them alive, they will in fact one day die. All things die eventually. And even worse, if I don’t facilitate their multiplication, no one one will ever have the joy of pricking themselves on a cactus ever again. Sadness.

Again, so it is with us spiritually. If we are not multiplying, then we’re going extinct.

That’s why our one big home group has just become two smaller home groups. That’s why eventually these two groups will become four. And on and on and on.

Growth is beautiful. Multiplication is miraculous. Come be a part of it!

-Rodger

Filed under: News on March 28th, 2009