An Instructive Moment About Hearing
At last! We come upon the story of the seeds!
Why do I love this story so much? Two reasons.
One - I think it is probably the only parable that I actually GOT the meaning of the first time I heard it. (I'm a real "tell it like it is" kind of girl. Parable schmarable...)
Two - I LOVE to garden. I LOVE to reap the harvest. Whether it be flowers or tomatoes or green, green grass, I do not care. Give me seeds and watch me go!
It was at the end of the meditation that I got smacked. Gire writes,
"In each case in the parable, the productivity of the seed is dependent upon the receptivity of the soil. Herein lies the mystery. Why would God confine the boundless power of heaven to a few seeds of haphazardly scattered truth, burying the hopes for an eternal harvest in such uncertain soil as that of the human heart?"
Oh why indeed!
I have wondered this a million times throughout my life. Why didn't He just come right out and show Himself?
"HEY EVERYONE...IT'S ME...GOD...I'M REAL SO GET OVER YOURSELVES AND LET'S GET ON WITH THIS..."
Why has no one ever found the cross? The body? DNA evidence? Why did no one who realized that this man was going to be a VERY big deal not right down every second of His life? Why are there so many questions left unanswered? Why can we still, for all our scientific discoveries not say that God is "real," Jesus lived and died and rose again and we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Why?
Because then there would be no reason for faith.
He tells us "you choose." He asks us "you decide." We think about it and we wonder and we read and we challenge and we speculate and we formulate and we grow and change and develop and one day we realize somehow, we got the door to open. How exactly did we do that? When exactly did Jesus get here, inside us? But there He is. All that searching and one day, you look up and you just know. You no longer need proof - scientific or otherwise. Chances are when others ask you about it, you can't even find the words to tell them how you know - you just do.
Even in the bible, we get sucked into parables and double meanings and hidden thoughts. But He's there - waiting for us. Hiding behind the words, ready to make them come alive when the time is right. Today He shows us one verse that we never noticed before. Tomorrow, He'll be there inside a Psalm. The next day, He'll appear as Luke recalls the resurrection.
Two years ago I planted tomatoes from seed. Before then, I had always bought small plants but this one year I wanted to try some heirloom varieties so I bought seeds and pete pots and set them by the kitchen window. I saw life start. I saw hope sprout. I saw herbs and weeds and plants pull up from the ground and lean toward the sun. Coming up and finding the light was instinctual.
And so it is with us.
Us and seeds.
Oh my...
Why do I love this story so much? Two reasons.
One - I think it is probably the only parable that I actually GOT the meaning of the first time I heard it. (I'm a real "tell it like it is" kind of girl. Parable schmarable...)
Two - I LOVE to garden. I LOVE to reap the harvest. Whether it be flowers or tomatoes or green, green grass, I do not care. Give me seeds and watch me go!
It was at the end of the meditation that I got smacked. Gire writes,
"In each case in the parable, the productivity of the seed is dependent upon the receptivity of the soil. Herein lies the mystery. Why would God confine the boundless power of heaven to a few seeds of haphazardly scattered truth, burying the hopes for an eternal harvest in such uncertain soil as that of the human heart?"
Oh why indeed!
I have wondered this a million times throughout my life. Why didn't He just come right out and show Himself?
"HEY EVERYONE...IT'S ME...GOD...I'M REAL SO GET OVER YOURSELVES AND LET'S GET ON WITH THIS..."
Why has no one ever found the cross? The body? DNA evidence? Why did no one who realized that this man was going to be a VERY big deal not right down every second of His life? Why are there so many questions left unanswered? Why can we still, for all our scientific discoveries not say that God is "real," Jesus lived and died and rose again and we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Why?
Because then there would be no reason for faith.
He tells us "you choose." He asks us "you decide." We think about it and we wonder and we read and we challenge and we speculate and we formulate and we grow and change and develop and one day we realize somehow, we got the door to open. How exactly did we do that? When exactly did Jesus get here, inside us? But there He is. All that searching and one day, you look up and you just know. You no longer need proof - scientific or otherwise. Chances are when others ask you about it, you can't even find the words to tell them how you know - you just do.
Even in the bible, we get sucked into parables and double meanings and hidden thoughts. But He's there - waiting for us. Hiding behind the words, ready to make them come alive when the time is right. Today He shows us one verse that we never noticed before. Tomorrow, He'll be there inside a Psalm. The next day, He'll appear as Luke recalls the resurrection.
Two years ago I planted tomatoes from seed. Before then, I had always bought small plants but this one year I wanted to try some heirloom varieties so I bought seeds and pete pots and set them by the kitchen window. I saw life start. I saw hope sprout. I saw herbs and weeds and plants pull up from the ground and lean toward the sun. Coming up and finding the light was instinctual.
And so it is with us.
Us and seeds.
Oh my...
posted by HeyJules at
8:00 AM
3 Comments:
"I saw hope sprout."
I love that Jules....
I love hearing this from a gardener's perspective, b/c I just am not an "outdoor kind of girl", so it gives it more meaning when someone who knows about the background details is so excited about it
By
dangermama, at 9:08 AM
"Why has no one ever found the cross? The body? DNA evidence? Why did no one who realized that this man was going to be a VERY big deal not right down every second of His life? Why are there so many questions left unanswered? Why can we still, for all our scientific discoveries not say that God is "real," Jesus lived and died and rose again and we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt?"
Jules, there wasn't a body because He took His body with Him. And, besides the Bible telling us of Jesus' resurrection, there are secular people out there, like Josephus, who was a historian. He verifies that there was a Jesus and He died and rose again. As for writing down, they DID, that's the Bible! :)
The rest IS faith.
I, too, like how you stated, "I saw hope sprout." What a mental picture for me!
By
Pilot Mom, at 11:01 AM
I agree with you that part of the beauty and mystery is that God lets us find Him at our own pace. And the journey to that moment is worth it, as is the journey after that moment when we wrestle with doubt/belief/doubt/faith/doubt...
By
Claire Joy, at 11:55 AM
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