Thursday, May 03, 2012

Spiritual Formation for Dummies - Never despise the power of small things (especially if they are children of God)

Never ever underestimate the power of small, seemingly insignificant and irrelevant things - especially if you proclaim that they are important... like a useless activity such as prayer, or the boring, ineffective and non-sensical word of the Living God...

Note from the author: This post was originally published on March 19, 2012 under the tittle, I want patience and I want it RIGHT NOW, as a part of a larger series Whining Fast 101 that evolved into Spiritual Formation 101, now tweaked to Spiritual Formation for Dummies. I believe that the truths conveyed in these posts are so essential to our healthy spiritual growth and spiritual maturity in Christ that I have decided to repost the entries in sequential order, with heartfelt prayer that the Spirit of Jesus Christ would connect the dots for you and all God's children so that you would be strengthened in your heart, mind and spirit and we all would be empowered by Him to live godly lives of courageous faith and humble service amidst the adulterous, self-serving, wicked and perverse generation among whom we apear as lights. Keep in mind that this rotten, corrupt world is the very same world which Christ loved and sacrificed His life for it. We are His ambassadors.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconcilliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.2 Corinthians 5:19-21

Now back to the Gardener from Outer Space and his first person singular Dummy...

I roll out of the truck hitting the pavement like a cannon ball. In the palm of his hand there are several individually labeled small plastic bags, each one containing seeds of a different kind.

You gotta be kidding me… I groan, … This is going to take FOR-E-VER! Why can’t we just go to Home Depot and get some of their ready-to-go, instantly blooming perennials…? , but he doesn’t seem to hear any of it, lost in a world all of his own.

He picks up a seed and looks at me,

You want a miracle…? Here’s a miracle, right in front of your nose.

It’s just a seed…

Yes, that’s what you see… but inside this seed… hidden… inside this tiny, lonely, easily ignored and trampled upon, seemingly insignificant seed, there is packed away an entire universe bursting with life, and energy, fruits and flowers and more seeds… ready to explode, creating more universes all around ...

For a few moments I forget to breathe, listening to him, transfixed, feeling I was awarded a front row seat featuring the Creation of the Universe…

But, before any of that can happen, he pauses as if remembering something, the little seed must fall into the ground… and die.

Die??? I gasp, choking on my own breath, suddenly transported back to reality.

Yep, he sighs simply, no other way. Sometimes I wish there were… but, from the way he sounds, I wonder if he might be talking about something else other than zucchini and tomatoes.

Unless the little seed is willing to lay down in the ground and die... He suddenly interrupts himself, and motions with his hand,

But, let’s get to work… I follow him slowly in a funeral procession for the bunch of little seeds. He turns my vegetable garden into a small burial plot for broccoli, squash, basil and cilantro and proceeds with the flowers… My face is so long it drags along the grass as I drag my feet behind. We make small signs and put them next to the neatly sown rows. For some reason, I feel like crying. How can something that's supposed to be happy and festive, a celebration of the crowning gardening activity - planting - turn into something so depressing and sad?!!!

What’s up? He lifts his head and looks at my morose body parts sprawled all across the lawn. I am a dirge incarnate. He shakes his head and bursts into laughter,

Cheer up, you silly goose… this is not about death… at least not all about death… This is about LIFE, real life… this death is just a passage into life … that is Life indeed.

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