Crack and Descend
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a little farming lesson.
It’s the season when the fields on our Maryland farm sit hard and nearly frozen, all brown and lifeless. When I was a child, daddy would say that the field was sleeping, it was resting; it was sleeping after working so hard to yield a thick crop of Timothy hay for our animals. Even the ground has its own Sabbath rest, and late November, at least on our farm in Maryland, is when that season of rest happens. But come late February, my family will till the earth with the tractor and the sharp blades of the tiller turning over the dark dirt to the light of the sun. After the early spring rains, we will sow new seed, a special kind of Timothy hayseed that produces the best thick crop of rich hay with nutrients for horses and cattle.
I would as a little girl trail barefoot behind the tractor and sower, being careful not to step on all the little tiny seeds. If I saw one that fell outside the long furrows of upturned earth, I felt sorry for it so I would kick it with my toe down into the trench, and then bent down to pat-pat a little dirt over the seed. That seed, or for that matter any seeds were not left alone to be scattered to the wind; they were with the rest down in the dark earth. For the life of me though, I never understood how a dry tiny seed could come to life; could sprout a root and then a stem, then grow and become this tall stalk in early summer, waving with the rest of the hay in the June breezes – it’s so beautiful to look out over our hayfield in early June and see all that tall lush grass waving in the wind. Then would come the mower, lifting the many bales of hay, the hard work of stacking hay in the barn so that our animals would have lots of food for the rest of the season.
And to think it all begins with a dry, tiny seed… a seed that breaks and descends into the soil; a strange transformation happens there, and that seed grows and rises and brings forth new grain. From this, Jesus draws a wonderful parallel to us when He says in John 12:24, “…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.” What’s the lesson here? Well, it’s a hard one. Jesus says that unless you allow Him to push you down into a dark place, a place of suffering or affliction, you’re going to remain alone. Did you hear that? Nothing of any good in the eternal kingdom will happen in your life or others: no harvest, no blessing for others. That is, unless you allow God to humble you through a dark time. Break you and when you die your little seed-self dies and a transformation takes place as you descend and become lowly and deny yourself. And what do you know? That is the way of spiritual growth and maturity. And your tiny little seed-self will remain alone, if you are content to stay on the surface of things and not be pushed into a dark place by God.
But oh, when you descend there, when you deny yourself, your wants and wishes, your comforts, your life becomes a rich blessing to so many others. You have to deny yourself, but if you do many new kernels, a plentiful harvest of new lives crops up all around you. It is always in dying to yourself that God brings forth a bounty of new believers – and it happens when you say no to yourself and truly live for Christ. Every morning you have to die to self and rise to Jesus. It’s the rhythm of a healthy spiritual life. Die to your wants and wishes, your own agenda and preferences, and let God resurrect you out of that dark place. Start today; crack and descend you little seed-self, and a harvest you will have.
© Joni and Friends
