Just transplanted some young Brandywine tomato seedlings. I had transplanted a couple of plants a few weeks ago, but didn’t have enough cans to transplant the rest. I’m astounded at the difference in the two sets.

Both sets were planted at the same time from the same batch of seed. Both sets were approximately the same size  when I transplanted the first ones. But the smaller of the two sets has remained in the seed tray until now.

Just that little bit of leg room has allowed the earlier transplants to flourish visibly.

It is easy to want to stay in our own familiar comfortable surroundings. But to truly grow we have to get out of the seat tray. Give ourselves a little bit of leg room to grow.

But what about others? Oh sure, we say, they try to keep us in small compartments. To limit who we are, who we strive to be. Maybe so… But do we do the same?

How often do we see a friend or acquaintance trying something new, and think to ourselves, “I can’t believe they really think they can do that… Oh, they’ll never stick with that… It’s just a phase… It’s just the newest, latest and greatest bandwagon they’re hopping on…”

How supportive are we of others, when they try to stretch beyond the limits we expect of them?

When we accept Christ and truly follow Him, we become new creatures. We are to put away the old habits that kept us from God, and to take up new habits to bring is closer to Him. And yes, there are times when some of the old gang scoff at our newly adopted ways. Christ came to save the Lost, not the perfect, because no such man or woman exists. Do we pray for the conversion of that lost, lost soul, the one nobody expects to come to Christ, then doubt that new Christian’s conviction when he or she does give their life to the Lord?

Are we the ones secretly scoffing, watching and waiting for the first time that newly-founded Christian messes up? Are we the ones to pounce immediately, crying, “See?! I told you so! It was just an act, too good to be true, it would never last…”

If we are scorning the new Christian for stumbling, then we are as deeply mired in sin as that Soul formerly was. More so, I suspect, because we as Bible-believing, forgiven, redeemed Christians ought to know better.

Jesus saves all sinners who repent and believe on Him. He can and does use even the lowest of us, even those whose hearts were once  farthest turned from Him. Even Paul, formerly called Saul, who actively sought out Christians to persecute. If Christ can save even Paul, if God can use even Paul, then He most assuredly can use that girl down the street who had the bad reputation…the guy who used to do drugs…the man who drank his paycheck away and cussed his neighbors. If they come to Him, God will lift them out of their cramped seed tray, straighten out their roots, give them new soil to nourish them, and bid them bear fruit….who are we, for whom He did the same, to say they will never grow and bear fruit?

Yes, it’s good to seek leg room. But we must also allow others their leg room as well, and accept the direction in which the Lord leads them to grow.