Slow and Steady and Not Really up to You

Among my collection of 12 plants, three were propagated. That is, I was gifted (albeit with some coercion) stems with two leaves. The first two plants I propagated were a pothos and a fiddle leaf fig. Within just four days the cut stem of the ivy was replaced by a hopeful nub, what I dubbed a foot as I gleefully showed off to my sister, “My ivy grew a foot!” Naturally, I was optimistic about my fig, so I continued to change the water and wait. This undertaking was in the middle of August. To my chagrin, the fig sat in the water, articulating no change. Stubborn enough, I took my two plants to college, and continued to tend to them. By that first week of college, the ivy’s roots had matured such that it could be properly potted. As yet, the fig’s cut stem sat straight, just as I cut it in August, without the slightest signs of growth.  

Harried by the onset of school, I left the fig sitting in old water for about two and a half weeks. In the middle of October, it occurred to me that that plant sitting at the corner of my windowsill is probably rotting. I decidedly made my way to the corner of my dorm to toss away my failed science experiment, yet funnily enough my fig’s stem had matured into roots about the size of my hand: my fig had indeed grown a hand!

Prof. Wilkins most recently gave a talk at the Saint Thomas More Society regarding the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant in the Messiah: Matthew’s genealogy reorients readers to the fact that God’s covenant to David stands unfulfilled: “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son…And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’” (2 Sam. 7) But David’s son Solomon’s temple is destroyed, and Solomon’s lineage is cut off.  Prof. Wilkins referred to the ironical emphasis embedded in the emphatic fourteen names passing from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation to Babylon, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, wherewith the culmination of the final set of fourteen relations is an adoptive rather than a biological relation: Christ is adopted by the Davidic line: the LORD, who adopts David’s biological son, Solomon, actually deigns for His very own Only begotten Son to be adopted by David’s heir St. Joseph. 

Solomon, as he begins his iconic prayer of dedication to the LORD upon finishing the Temple in Jerusalem, prays: “You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—as it is today.”(1 Kings 8:24) Solomon in a myopic understanding of the LORD’s covenant judges that it has come to full fruition–that in some manner His work was done: the temple was standing and Solomon himself was successful as heir to David.  

Solomon stands corrected, because he isn’t faithful, Israel is not faithful, and his line of heirs is cut short. What is resonant is not merely that Solomon failed, but that God, Who is God and unalterably so, Who is Good, Whose steadfast love endures forever, nonetheless brings to fulfillment that eternal Davidic kingdom. God blesses and brings about those very blessings. He Himself fulfills His blessing to David in Christ.  Regarding the plants, what I learned upon propagating that fig, was that it takes a frustrating amount of time, but plants just grow.  This is not a challenge prompted for you to abstain from watering your plants or changing the water in your propagation terrariums. What I am trying to say is that the plants are programmed in their DNA to grow. Perhaps 3 billion years ago, God promised the little seeds that they would one day be big and gorgeously green.  My fig appeared more or less dead for the month of September, but perhaps that was also part of the growing. I may be dangerously convinced that we grow because of the sort of thing God created us to be, and because He will have His way, point-blank, and His way is Good, also point-blank. Like Solomon, I sometimes have moments of flawed clarity, where I think this is it, it all makes sense. But such moments are always succeeded by moments of terrifically familiar doubts and fears, reinforced by the meta fear that I won’t change, that I am just too strong to change, too strong to grow. The LORD authored, guided along, and brought to completion His promise to David. The Israelites, however mired in sin, were not too strong to receive His grace. Jesus took on flesh for them. The upshot of this is that God’s promise to David was unfolding all along, amidst the split between Judah and Israel, amidst the faithlessness. Development is slow and often too subtle to lay hold of with our eyes; yet, having collected a growing number of specimen not too strong for growth: a pothos, a fiddle leaf fig, and presently a rubber plant, I have a growing (pun intended) inkling, approximating something like hope, that I am also not too strong to grow. Perhaps, “His will be done” is not a suggestion but a stubborn promise.