But the Farmer Doesn't Know How
Mark 4:27c (CEB) · Tending the Soul: Growing in Grace Through Three Questions
“The seed sprouts and grows, but the farmer doesn’t know how.” — Mark 4:27 (CEB)
Jesus doesn’t say this as a problem to solve. He says it as a feature of the kingdom. The farmer doesn’t know how, and that’s the whole point.
We treat mystery as a gap in our knowledge, something to fill with better data, better theology, better self-awareness. But Jesus treats mystery as the condition under which the kingdom operates. God’s work in us isn’t something we master. It’s something we participate in without fully understanding.
This is deeply freeing if you let it be. It means you don’t have to understand your own transformation to be transformed. You don’t have to diagram your growth to be growing. The person who says “I don’t know why I’m different, but I am” is telling the truth about how God works.
The farmer scattered. The farmer slept. The farmer woke. And somehow, through no genius of his own, life emerged from the dirt. If your spiritual life feels mysterious right now, you might be closer to the kingdom than you think.
God of mystery, free us from the need to understand everything before we trust it. Teach us to live faithfully inside what we cannot explain. Amen.