They’ve heard the baby’s heartbeat and they’ve seen the initial ultrasound photos. In just a few more weeks, a complete body scan will show tiny facial features, little fingers and toes. Will she be sucking her thumb? Will she be naughty like her daddy and scoot out of the frame each time the tech gets a good shot? I’m amazed at the realistic detail of late term three dimensional ultrasound! How just a handful of cells can multiply in such a short time to form a living, breathing human being is nothing short of a miracle!
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
Psalms 139:13-16 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.139.13-16.NLT
In a world where “go big or go home” drives the bus, are we content with smallness? Is my opinion of myself in proper proportion to God, my Creator?
Everything starts small. Even Jesus came as a baby. He didn’t skip over the messiness of potty training or learning to crawl then walk. He experienced acne and attitude, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
“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 NIV
A seed is born of a plant or tree, but it also contains the plant or tree in its signature. In fact it contains one that contains many more. Jesus said, “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
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.12.24.NLT
Jesus taught His disciples about planting seeds during Passover celebration just before His death and resurrection. His stories weren’t just stories to entertain them. Jesus used parables to illustrate the Kingdom of God, truth about who God is and who we are in Him, who I am and who you are in Christ, because of His sacrifice. Jesus also taught by example. Just before this Passover, Jesus also washed His disciples’ feet, saying, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
John 13:15 NIV
“Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it?
It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.”
Jesus used many similar stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they could understand.”
Mark 4:30-33 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mrk.4.31-33.NLT
In his song Living Hope, Phil Wickham sings,
“Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence, the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
Jesus, yours is the victory!
The work is finished. The end is written. Jesus Christ, my living Hope.”
Jesus was the seed planted in the ground for three days and awakened to eternal life, defeating sin and death once for all time. The Author of Life is also the Author of Salvation, “the firstborn among many,” (Romans 8:29) who ushered in the Kingdom of God. You and I are seeds. We are not what we will be. We are the epitome of smallness in God’s kingdom, yet He chooses us and calls us His own. He “molds us and makes us after His will while we are waiting yielded and still.” Hymn: Have Thine own way, Lord
“But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?”
What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first.
And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-37 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.15.36-37.NLT
Just as God knows each of us in the womb, so He knows each of us in eternity. There are no mysteries in the mind of the eternal One. This life is a gift, yet it is as a seed is to a mighty redwood, as a water molecule is to the entire ocean!
In the final chapter of the last of his Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis penned these words. “All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)
“Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.”
Hebrews 12:28 NLT
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