I see myself planted deep in the earth, with its darkness and grime. I cannot see heaven above, but I know in faith that it is there, somewhere.
I wait.
God’s living water cracks the difficult, tough outer shell I so carefully hold and which prevents me from growing. What is happening to me? I don’t like it. I’d rather control what occurs next. I’m comfortable, in a way, with the slimy gloom around me. Real life can feel dark.
How are my life’s circumstances nurturing that something which softens my hard shell?I notice a crack in my hull. The embryo of love sends out a small root. I stay in the soil, waiting to be shown what will come next. God, I bring my desires, these emotions, to you. Please help me to grow toward light.As the root emerges, I wonder. I know I’m being transformed, but how? My existence is still surrounded by worms and questions about what comes next.
I reach for the living water as it is given to me. From where does this help come?
I’ve been in this earth for some time now, and from the top of my being somewhere, a new spot of life emerges, reaching upward. What is up there? What will heaven be like?
As I think about where I live now, I know that life above ground is full of incredible variety in plant and animal life. In California, giant redwood trees cause me to gasp when I walk in their fern-blanketed forests. I imagine that heaven will be as different from my current existence as a tiny mustard seed is different from the majestic, sun-bathed forests.
I just can’t even imagine heaven, where an infinite Trinity exists, and where saints gone before me laugh with love at the limited vision I have, mere seed that I am. I have no idea how wonderful it will be.
How radically different will heaven be from anything I imagine, as a buried seed is from the world above the ground?