• The Century Plant

  Contributed by Johnny A. Palmer Jr. on Feb 10, 2012 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Growth In Christ

  Denomination: Baptist

THE CENTURY PLANT

Abraham has now reached the Century mark! He is 100 years old and Sarah is 90.

A common sight in America's Southwest desert is the century plant. It's unique. The century plant (Agave Americana) thrives in rocky, mountainous, desert sites. It has dramatic, splayed leaves that grow up to a foot wide. The plant can reach twelve feet in diameter.

But what makes the century plant unusual, as its name suggests, is its long reproduction cycle. For twenty or thirty years (no, not a literal one hundred years), the six-foot-tall plant stands the same height and puts out no flowers. Then one year, without warning, a new bud sprouts. The bud, which resembles a tree-trunk-size asparagus spear, shoots into the sky at a fantastic rate of seven inches per day and reaches an eventual height of twenty to forty feet. Then it crowns itself with several clumps of yellowish blossoms that last up to three weeks.

This century old man was been at a stand still for 25 years - the wam! He is bearing the fruit that God had promised him...