Faith is Like a Seed

A shriveled-up seed.  Dry, inert, lifeless.  Falls to the ground, is tucked by the heaviness of an afternoon rain down into a few centimeters of dirt, a pocket of potential.  The world passes around it.  The sun rises, the owls eat the mice, the family bickers at the dinner table just inside. The glow and hum of the microcosmos of the soil rubs against that seed.  The globe comes to a standstill.  The restaurants close, the people panic, keyboards click with virtual grasping at straws.  The hand sanitizer is depleted and the toilet paper aisle shows a green skeleton, picked to the bone.  And the tiny pod of dried-up seed is enveloped in the darkness.  Waiting in the womb of the earth for a miracle.God, can these bones live?  You alone know.Faith is like a seed.Because it’s tiny?  Because all it takes is the smallest speck to fruit into a giant tree?Faith is like a seed.Because it is nothing.  It is dead.  It is dry.  It waits in the dark, moist, stillness.  Faith is like a seed because it does not control its own destiny.  It sits as the soil warms it.  It waits as the rain trickles down.  It absolutely miraculously and spontaneously grows and pops and sprouts and moves toward the light.  Faith is not interested in achieving.  It is the opposite of all the sexy things.  It is humble, but stubborn.  Remaining where it is planted.  Powerless to the surrounding changing of season and passing of time.  And powerful in its potential for growth toward the light; bursting with possibility for life and fruit, bounty and abundance.What looks like death, wrapped in the heart of a motionless void may just be the perfect posture.  The seed gives up and lets itself be held.  Cradled in the richness of the unknown, coaxed out of its shell into something completely new.  It rises up, it bears fruit.  The buds blossom into colorful splendor.  It feeds the eye with its rich color, it feeds a body with its flesh.  It takes its rightful place as the intent of its lifeless self transforms into resplendent beauty and its goal beyond its wildest imaginings: To be useful to God’s glory.  And to delight in the co-existence of the reams of life that break open into a world buzzing.  Like Eden.About the Author: Rev. Kate B. Buckley is a long-time friend of GIPL, having served on our staff engaging in coastal outreach and Creation care programming. A graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary, Rev. Buckley serves on the pastoral staff of Saint Simons Presbyterian Church and lives in St. Simons Island with her husband and three children, where she explores the wonders of faith and coastal Georgia on a daily basis.