Good morning…
Since I began blogging daily in January of 2012, there have been a large handful of posts I will always remember. Posts I love. Posts teaching timeless truths. Posts continuing to shape me, even to this day. The wildfires in California now spark in my mind one of my favorite posts of all time, written in 2014.
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Seeds Released By Fire by Sue Allen
I discovered something amazing when our family hiked and camped in Sequoia National Park.
“Whenever most people see a forest fire, they automatically think about all of the trees and bushes that are being destroyed. After the fire is over, the landscape looks like a blackened scene of destruction. But did you know that some plants and trees actually need fires in order to survive? A number of plants rely on fire to release their seeds. One example is the jack pine. Their cones are very thick and hard. They are literally glued shut with a strong resin. These cones are referred to serotinous, which means late blooming. Serotinous cones can hang on a pine tree for years without opening up to release seeds. When a fire sweeps through a forest of jack pines, the heat from the fire melts the resin, allowing the cones to open up and release the seeds. Perhaps one of the most famous trees that have serotinous cones is the giant redwood or sequoia of California. Towering up to nearly 300 feet tall and 50 feet in diameter, the giant sequoia are the world’s largest trees in total volume. Their cones contain up to 200 seeds and may take 2 years to mature. Once matured, they will remain in the cone and await a forest fire. The heat from the fire causes the cones to open and release their seeds.” (http://creationevolution.com/2012/06/plants-that-need-fire-to-survive/)
How do these facts influence our life of faith? Some of the seeds God placed inside of us take a long time to mature and are only released when a forest fire sweeps through our lives, melting that which binds us, freeing the late blooming seeds waiting in our soul. Though our lives may look like a blackened scene of desolation after painful flames rip through, seeds of new life are dropped, ready to mature into mammoth and majestic.
Some of life’s most valuable lessons are learned only through hardship. The seeds released in us during difficult times often grow to become our largest, most valuable gift to the world. Mark 4:30-32 (MSG) says it this way: “How can we picture God’s kingdom? What kind of story can we use? It’s like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.”
Let’s entrust our life to the One bigger than painful fires, maturing seeds, and Sequoia trees. (Sue Allen’s Depend on Me: Trusting God In Life’s Deep End, 96-97).
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God’s ways and God’s thoughts are higher than our human minds can conceive (Isaiah 55:8-12). It is impossible to comprehend the gift of new life being released in all of us during times of trial, terror, and tragedy, yet some late blooming seeds would never be freed if the weather always stayed “sunny and seventy.” When life turns up the heat on our threshold of pain, we do well to remember: “Some of the seeds God has placed inside of us take a long time to mature and are only released when a forest fire sweeps through our lives, melting that which binds us, freeing the late blooming seeds waiting in our soul.”
In quiet intimacy we bed down with the God of the universe, the God who promises us personally: “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stashed away in secret places, so you may recognize that I am the Lord, the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel” (Isaiah 45:3, NET).
Will we trust the hidden, higher ways of God, our caring Creator who calls us each by name?
…Sue…
P.S. Thanks to Gina MacFarland, my talented web designer from Black Mountain, N.C., who shared with us the gorgeous photograph for today’s post.
