How many of you have ever watched a sweet potato vine grow? By this I mean have you ever taken a sweet potato, placed it in a container of water with only the tip of the sweet potato sticking out of the water. No dirt whatsoever within the container but only the sweet potato and the water. It will grow.
I have taken the time to do this, over the years, from time to time. My daughter Elizabeth's Grandma Alice, God rest her soul, one time did this with the sweet potato. She placed the sweet potato in one of those old glass battery cases, the ones that are quite the antique now. Then she filled it with water and placed it in a sunny spot within a dry sink, her husband had made her. That sweet potato grew wonderfully well. It had such glorious vines and leaves upon it. The only nurture that it received was in keeping it watered. Once the water level dropped she always filled it back up. The sweet potato vine prospered.
I had forgotten about the sweet potato vines growing in just water for quite some time . I just put it out of my mind. My Dad grows his sweet potatoes in the ground, of his garden, so they will bear more sweet potatoes whereas if you grow them only in water it is merely for a decorative purpose. I just needed to make that distinction so you would know that sweet potatoes can grow in more than one way.
I home school my children as I have often mentioned before. I had bought some sweet potatoes and had used all except one. This one was starting to sprout as my son , Zak, noticed and brought to my attention. It brought to mind the sweet potato that Elizabeth's Grandma Alice had grown years ago in the water. So I got a mason quart jar, placed the sweet potato in it, then filled the jar with water. The sweet potato is about 2 inches above the top of the jar.
Zak, of course, wanted to know why I was doing this on that day. I explained to him about the sweet potato and that it would grow vines and roots. The roots I explained would grow within the water inside the jar while the vines would grow from the top of the sweet potato and grow down. He was curious as Zak is my little botanist. He has a love for growing plants of any type.
I will share a brief story with you about my son. He is 9 now. When he was smaller we went to the store and into the gardening section of the department store. Zak started to cry. I asked him what was wrong. He said he felt bad for the plants as they were being mistreated at the store. I had him show me what he meant. He took me to the display of potted plants that had caused him the distress he felt. The plants were all jammed in together and some had torn and smashed leaves and stems. Some even had broken branches on them and the flowers were wilted on some. He said to me ," Momma these people are not nice to the plants. They treat them mean. Why do they do that ? God made these plants. I do not like for the plants to be treated so meanly".
I was amazed at the empathy that my little child had towards the plants. It touched me greatly to see how much my son cared. I was raised on a farm, a working farm so I always had a love for plants and animals. To see this in my son truly blest my heart. I explained to him about the plants in the store and why they looked as they did. That they were mass produced for the purpose of selling them for profit. They were packed into trucks and shipped across the country and the conditions in which they are shipped are not always good for the plants. He understood what I was telling him. I always explain to my children, if I am capable of doing so, any question that they bring to me. If I do not know the answer I tell them so and then I will go and do research, with them, to find the answer if I do not know the answer.
Now back to the sweet potato vine. I put the sweet potato in the water about two months ago. It started growing right away. It has prospered. I had to move it from my kitchen counter to a metal bookshelf that I have in my living room. The bookshelf is near an east facing window so the sweet potato vine gets plenty of sunshine. I also have to refill the jar with water every morning as the sweet potato drinks that much water every night. The roots almost fill the inside of the jar with the sweet potato itself. The vines are now close to 6 to 7 feet long, green and leafy. They are trailing and trying to vine around the book shelf. Zak is amazed at how much the sweet potato vines grow each day. Sometimes he will go in the other room after looking at the vines only to return about an hour later to discover that the vines have grown since he left the room. I do not add any fertilizer to the water it is water straight from the tap, yet the vine flourishes. It is a blessing to see the joy that this sweet potato vine brings to my son's face and heart. It is teaching him some of science and the way of growing things. Yet it also teaches him a more valuable lesson.
The sweet potato is much like us. Think about it for a moment. How, you say, can a sweet potato be like us ? This is how. The sweet potato would not have continued to grow without getting the water and nutrients from the water to make it grow just as we, when we give our life to the Lord, can not grow unless we are getting the Word, the message, the Love, the forgiveness of the Lord, the leading of the Lord and His presence in our daily lives. We need the Lord in our life, daily in order to grow in Him. We can not spiritually grow in the Lord without being immersed in His Word just as the sweet potato could not continue to grow without being immersed in the water. Without the water , the sweet potato would eventually rot away, just as we, when we give our life to the Lord, without the continued immersion in His Word and ways we would rot in the corruption of this world. e have to be daily immersed in the Lord in order to grow in and with the Lord.
We have to be fed daily of the Lord in order to grow in the Lord, just as the sweet potato vine needs that daily drink of water to get the nutrients it needs to grow. Think about it. How many times have you stopped reading your Bible daily and things start to go wrong, you feel distanced from the Lord ? You start to wonder why things are going as they are ? You do not have the peace and joy that you once had in the Lord ? You feel somewhat drained, maybe even a bit depressed ? What happened ? You stopped immersing yourself in the Lord and in His Word. You do not have that daily feed to keep you going strong. You need to pick up your Bible, the Word of the Lord, and get immersed in it daily. Feed the hunger that comes from and can only be fed by the Lord. Get immersed in the Lord and watch the growth that can only come from being fed of and by the Lord.
Now do you see how that sweet potato vine and us are so much alike. Without being immersed in the one thing we need we cannot continue to grow. The sweet potato needs the water. We need the Lord.
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