Ultimate spring

"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12.24

Looking out of my study window on a beautiful late spring morning, I see a majestic view and I see a bleak landscape bursting with potential as the new growth begins to emerge. Jesus likened the world to a giant field, bursting with potential. Eventually there would be a plentiful harvest requiring workers to bring it in (Luke 10). But before that the growing season, in which weeds would have to be allowed to flourish so that none of the precious crop would be uprooted by mistake (Matthew 13). Whether what grows is good or bad will depend on the quality of the soil (Mark 4). But what about the seed itself?

In the verse above from John's gospel, Jesus reminds us that, to release its extraordinary power, a seed must fall into the ground and die. Only then is the potential within released to begin its journey towards maturity and fruitfulness. It's true of nature; it is also true of us. But unlike nature, we can choose: to hoard the diminished life we have as a solitary seed or to fall into the ground and die in order to release the potential for growth, maturity and fruitfulness which God has planted within each of us.

Take a look at your life and ask yourself: have I died to my instinctive desire to cling to what I already have and know and want? Or am I abandoning all that is safe and secure and respectable, in order to set out on a life of adventurous faithfulness? Like Abraham, I won't know exactly where I am going, but I can count on God who promises never to leave or forsake me and who has guaranteed to bring me safely home: not the old home, where I never truly belonged, but to my new home in the promised Kingdom, the New Creation, where life will no longer be a diminished shadow of existence but the eternal enjoyment of life in its fulness, in the company of the Creator, Redeemer and Comforter himself!