“The seed is God in you.” I woke up this morning with that thought.

Let me back up a minute. When I was first thinking about this passage (Mark 4:26-29), I pictured a person holding a bag of seeds. That person knows what kind of seeds they are, but not how many there are. They know the shape and feel of them and have a generalized idea of what that seed will become. But the specifics of what each blossom or piece of fruit will look like, and in some cases, what color will come or how healthy the harvest will be…all that is an unknown. An unknown held in their hands.

But what is the seed? If we’re talking plants that’s easy. But the kingdom of God? What are those seeds?

I think we have to back up to verse 20. “But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams” (MSG). Those who hear and embrace. We know from the other verses that God is the one who produces the fruit.

So, I am a seed. One small, carefully crafted seed with Life residing in me.

I wonder how it feels to you knowing that Life resides in you. Does it change anything for you?

That picture of the pine nut in v. 30-32 captures my attention. In the hand, it’s small and nondescript. But when it’s planted…when it’s put in the ground…into the place where it breaks apart, it grows into a huge tree with thick branches…a safe place for eagles – the really big birds – to come and rest.

In my natural thinking, I’m more apt to imagine breaking apart as the pathway to death, not life. It’s kind of like the thinking of our last blog – the voice that says it’s all up to me. And yet, the seed does not break itself apart. The seed does not dictate the process of growth. It simply is…a seed surrendered to the fullness of the Life within.

I want to live like that. Not trying to be what I’m not…not trying to prescribe a process I have no control over. But simply as I am. A carefully, fearfully, and wonderfully made seed that holds Life. Is that enough? It’s the question, isn’t it. Is it enough to be who I am and let God lead me into and through the process of becoming? I’m sitting with that question. What will you sit with today?

You can watch your breath,

you can be conscious of your diaphragm rising and falling,

conscious of the movement of life in you.

For this time as I breathe in and out,

all I am is a place where life is happening.

The breath moves in, the breath moves out;

I am a place where life is happening.

And if I am a place where life is happening,

I am a place where GOD is happening.

 

–Rowan Williams, Being Human