Raising rice in the Orient is a beautiful process. The rice is sown on a morass of mud and water ploughed up by great buffaloes. After a few weeks the pale green shoots spring up, appearing above the water. The seed has been sown very thickly and the plants are clustered together in great numbers. The farmer can pull up a score in a single handful. At that point the shoots are ready for transplanting. So God first plants us and lets us grow very close to some of His children. We may be in great clusters in the nursery or the hothouse. But when we reach a certain stage we must be transplanted or come to nothing. God calls us out by His Spirit and Providence into situations where we have to lean directly on Him. He puts upon us a weight of responsibility so great that we are thrown upon the limitless resources of His grace and have an opportunity to develop. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
