Good morning…
“What are you doing with this unreturned library book from Wellington, Florida?” my husband wisely asked as we were cleaning out our messy office.
Of course, amid all the discarded used cookbooks, I had been drawn to this quirky paperback on the cluttered shelf at Goodwill. On the front, an image of a handcrafted flower. On the back cover, “This is the recipe for life…” welcomed me forward with one single stanza. Like a hungry little orphan, I just had to bring her home. God’s divine dynamic was set in motion, “Now, who is feeding who?”
I am always on the look out for soulful ingredients which sprinkle fresh, new flavors into my everyday life. I flipped through her wildly underlined pages and uncovered this deep wisdom, simple, profound.
Jesus taught of the same divine dynamic. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives (John 12:24, NLT). For Jesus, for us, and for every living thing on earth, this is the recipe for abundant life.
I think it’s amazing to see how one experience in life adds fuel for the next. Naturally, organically, God grows new from the old. We all, like every perennial in our garden, must wilt, fall, root, and rise in order to bloom. Which of these etchings most closely depicts the phase of life you are in now? How so?
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26-29, NIV).
Wilt. Fall. Root. Rise. Bloom. A plentiful harvest of new lives. In what small, simple ways might you celebrate being in this passing state with God today?
…Sue…
