The Growth Belongs to God

God Who Gives the Growth,

You allow me to participate in meaningful work.

I can plant an idea.Encourage a person.Teach a truth.Build something that creates the conditions for life to flourish.

But Your Word speaks of αὐξάνω (auxanō).

To grow.To increase.To bring something toward maturity.

Paul planted.

Apollos watered.

But You made it grow.

Keep me faithful to my part without making me possessive of the outcome.

I confess that I sometimes want credit for growth.

I want to know that my contribution mattered.

I compare what I planted with what someone else was allowed to harvest.

Then service becomes competition, and purpose becomes attached to recognition.

Free me from needing to be the only person You use.

Some work requires many hands across many seasons.

I may begin what another person develops.

I may nurture what someone else planted.

I may never meet the person who eventually gathers the fruit.

Let that be enough.

Teach me to honor the contributions of others without diminishing my own.

Planting matters.

Watering matters.

But neither can create life.

Only You can reach the places in a person that effort, skill, and persuasion cannot reach.

Only You can turn a faithful act into fruit beyond what the person offering it could foresee.

Help me do my work carefully and release it completely.

The growth does not belong to me.

It belongs to You.

May that truth make me both diligent and free.

Amen.