This is not a detour from the story. This is the story.

They Planted What They Could Not See

In the summer of 1787, the founders gathered again — this time not to declare independence, but to build something that would outlast them. The Constitution they drafted would govern a nation they would never fully see. The freedoms they framed would be exercised by generations not yet born. The “more perfect union” they envisioned was, by their own admission, still becoming.

George Washington, who presided over that Constitutional Convention and understood perhaps better than anyone what they were actually doing, reflected on the weight of what they were planting:

“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

An experiment. He called it an experiment. Not a guarantee. Not a finished product. A seed in the ground, entrusted to hands that hadn’t been born yet — to your hands, and mine.

That is an extraordinary act of faith. They planted what they could not see. And 250 years later, we are still living inside the harvest of their courage.

You Are Always Planting for Someone Else

Here is the part of planting that doesn’t get talked about enough: most of what we sow, we will not be the ones to harvest.

The tree you plant today will give shade to someone who hasn’t been born yet. The faithfulness you practice in private will shape the character of your children in ways you won’t fully see for decades. The kindness you extend without applause, the integrity you hold onto when no one is watching, the prayers you pray into what feels like an empty ceiling — all of it is going somewhere, taking root in soil you may never stand on again.

Scripture has always understood this. One of the most quietly radical verses in the Old Testament appears in the book of Jeremiah, when God addresses a people living in exile — displaced, discouraged, far from everything familiar. His instruction to them is startling in its ordinariness:

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce… seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:5, 7)

Plant gardens. In exile. In the hard season. In the place that doesn’t yet feel like home.

Not because the harvest is guaranteed. Not because you can see the outcome. But planting is an act of hope, and hope is an act of resistance against despair.

The K.I.S.S. ~ Plant what you can’t see!

The Courage of the Unfinished

There is a particular kind of courage required to begin something you won’t finish.

It’s easier, in a way, to start something you can complete quickly — a project with a clear end date, a goal with a visible finish line, a risk where the outcome will be known by morning. That kind of courage is real, but it’s bounded. You can see both ends of it.

The harder courage is the long kind. The kind that keeps showing up to something that will take years. The kind that plants in a season of drought and trusts that the rain will come. The kind that hands something unfinished to the next generation and says, here — carry this further than I could.

Paul described the endurance of faith this way in his letter to the Galatians:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

If we do not give up. That phrase is doing a lot of work. It acknowledges that giving up is a real option — that the in-between is long enough and hard enough that quitting is always on the table. And it calls us forward anyway. Not because the harvest is visible yet, but because the planting itself is an act of faithfulness.

What Are You Planting?

Two hundred fifty years ago, a group of imperfect, visionary, deeply human people planted something in the ground that would take generations to grow. They did it without seeing the outcome. They did it in the middle of a war. They did it knowing they were betting their lives on the possibility of something that had never existed before.

You don’t have to change the course of a nation to matter. You just have to plant what’s in your hands today — faithfully, hopefully, without demanding to see the harvest before you’ve done the work.

The seed you bury today might be a conversation you finally have. A commitment you quietly renew. A dream you stop waiting for permission to pursue. A child you keep showing up for, even in the seasons when it’s thankless. A prayer you keep praying, even when the sky feels silent.

Plant it anyway.

You are not just living your own story. You are planting into the lives of people who will come after you — people who will one day stand in the shade of something you started, without even knowing your name.

That is not a small thing.

That is, in fact, everything.

“One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.” (Psalm 145:4)

Plant what you can’t yet see. Trust the soil. Keep showing up.

The harvest has a way of coming exactly when it was always meant to.

“Be present. Be incredible. Be YOU!!!“