In the children's book Frog and Toad Together, "The Garden" tells the story of Toad's adventure of planting seeds to grow a garden. Things begin when Toad appreciates his friend Frog's fine garden. "Well, yes," replied Frog, "but it was hard work." "I wish I had a garden," responds Toad. So Frog gives Toad a package of seeds and tells him that if he plants the seeds he too can grow a beautiful garden. Toad asks, "How soon?" "Quite soon" is the reply.
Toad plants the seeds and then tells them to start growing while he stands there waiting for them to appear. When he sees no response, he tells the seeds to start growing, a little louder. Then he shouts at the seeds, commanding them to start growing. Hearing the loud noise, Frog looks over the fence and asks what all the commotion is about. Toad replies, "My seeds won't grow."
Frog says, "You're shouting too much. These poor seeds area afraid to grow!"
Toad remarks, "My seed are afraid to grow?"
"Leave them alone for a few days," answers Frog. "Let the sun shine on them. Let the rain fall on them. Soon your seeds will start to grow."
Later that night, Toad looks out over his garden and sees that nothing has changed. "Drat, my seeds haven't started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark. I will read the seeds a story, and then they won't be afraid."
Over the next couple of days, we see Toad reading the seeds stories, singing songs to them, dancing in the rain for them, and playing tunes for them on the violin, all in fruitless efforts to coax the seeds to grown on his timetable. One night, in a fit of exhaustion, Toad remarks, "Oh, what shall I do? These seeds must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world." He collapses in sleep from the fatigue of trying to entertain the seeds nonstop for several days.
He is awakened the next day by a jubilant Frog saying, "Toad, Toad, wake up! Look at your garden."
"Oh, at last my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow."
"And now, replies Frog, "you'll have a nice garden, too."
"Yes, but you were right, Frog," remarks Toad, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It was very hard work."
Many of us are like Toad. We are spending our lives singing, dancing, and telling stories to dirt, trying to make the seeds grow. In the end, we conclude that making seeds grow is hard work.
But the Bible tells us throughout that only God can cause growth. Trying to cause growth is not possible for us and only confuses us. Worse than that, when we try to cause growth we take upon our shoulders God's work, which can be blasphemous, human-centered, and prideful. This also sets many people up for disappointment.
Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow" (1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
We should all feel relieved that we are released from a lot of hard work. See Mark 4:26-29 for more. | 
