This past Easter Sunday, I sent everyone home with a packet of flower seeds and an invitation to plant a little “resurrection garden.” I encouraged our church family to sow them in a small plot as a reminder that resurrection often begins with something being buried and that God’s promises are sure, but sometimes take a long time.  Jesus Himself said, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed” (John 12:24).

Ironically, I was one of the last people to plant mine.

The seed packet sat for weeks in the little basket in our kitchen where my wallet, keys, loose change, and other pocket debris accumulates. Every time I grabbed my keys, there it was—a silent reminder of a sermon I hadn’t quite lived out yet.

Originally, I thought I’d scatter the seeds into one of our existing flower beds. But garden space is in short supply around our house, and I really wanted a fresh spot where I could watch the entire process unfold—and know that what was coming up wasn’t weeds! So, I found an empty decorative container in the back of the garage. Now, all I needed was  a bag of potting soil. I picked one up at Walmart… but before I could use it, Pam claimed it for her hanging baskets! By the time I bought another bag, more weeks had slipped by, and it was almost June before I finally planted them.

Meanwhile, some of you were much more prompt.

Over the past few weeks, several people have sent me pictures of their resurrection gardens, and they are absolutely beautiful. Some are overflowing with color and blooms.  Mine? Well… let’s just say it’s a little more aspirational. Kind of like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, my garden’s blooming now, but it’s still a bit spindly and has some catching up to do!

Still, the object lesson has been helpful. Every morning as I walked down the walkway to my car, I’d glance over at that pot. At first, it looked exactly the same. Just dirt. Eventually a few tiny green shoots appeared, but they seemed to take forever. Honestly, there were days I wondered if anything much was going to come of it. Those first shoots were almost impossibly thin, looking far too fragile to survive the blazing summer sun or the driving rain.

Then this week I walked past it and it’s finally blooming.

Standing there looking at those flowers, I couldn’t help but think back to Easter and the two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. They walked away from Jerusalem saying, “We had hoped…” (Luke 24:21). From their perspective, nothing had happened. Their dreams had died and their future had been buried with it.

But they were completely wrong. The resurrection had already happened. Jesus was walking beside them. God had been working all along—they just didn’t realize it.

Isn’t that often our story?

We pray for healing, but all we see is dirt.

And sometimes, even when something finally begins to emerge, it seems so small and fragile that we almost dismiss it. We wonder, Will this really last? Is anything actually happening? Like those first thin shoots in my container, it hardly seems strong enough to survive.

We pray for our children, a broken relationship, a financial burden, or a spiritual breakthrough, and week after week, month after month, it seems as if nothing substantive is changing.

But seeds do their most important work underground.

Long before the flower appears, the seed was changing, softening, breaking open. Roots began to reach downward long before a stem pushed upward. Almost everything important was happening where no one could see it.

So it is with God’s work in our lives.

Evidence of resurrection often arrives much more slowly than we hoped.  But many times God has already begun the resurrection while we’re still convinced nothing is happening.

Every morning I was looking for flowers, but God was growing roots.

It’s a human response.  We tend to judge God’s work by what we can see, while God measures His work by what He’s accomplishing beneath the surface.

My little container of flowers won’t last forever. But every time I walk past it now, it reminds me of something I consistently need to remember:

Don’t judge God’s work too early or only by what you can see.

The God who raised Jesus from the dead is still bringing life where we only see dirt. If all you can see today is bare ground—or perhaps just a few fragile shoots that don’t look like they’ll amount to much—don’t lose heart. He may be doing His greatest work where your eyes cannot yet see.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

Don’t give up.  The blooms are coming.