Dim Glass Gospel Glimpses

SEEDS

written by Rachel Dube

When I was younger, after getting married, I missed my family dearly. I longed to be near them again and, as God also began to call my siblings into different places around the world, I felt the gnawing in my heart of the fear that we would never all live near one another again.

I felt blessed, humbled and amazed at the things I saw as I witnessed God working in the hearts and lives of my family. He was growing a deep love, passion and action in all of my siblings for the beautiful gospel of Christ. He was giving them the joy of the burden of the great commission and sending them into the world to make disciples. My heart was overwhelmed at how God was using and building up my family to be powerfully effective for Him.

But my selfish, short-sighted heart ached at the same time, in loss. I felt a hint of what many mothers must feel as the years carry their children into young adulthood - afraid that my family, all the limbs of my body connected to my heart and mind, would be scattered in all directions across the world, far from me; that all the people I love the most would become strangers; that we were parting too soon. Death had not yet taken us, but a small taste of the grief of death was creeping into my heart as each person found a life so far from my own.

I cannot imagine how much more pain and tempting grief my own mother struggled with during that season of life. The children she grew inside her, saw come into the world and raised and poured her very life into, scattered like the people from the Tower of Babel. And there was nothing anyone could seem to do to stop it. It was as if we couldn’t stand in one place against the speed of the rotating earth - like the outer pull of a quickly spinning merry-go-round tugging each person out of the center one by one until they were scattered in all directions on the playground.

But God, the God of all comfort, showed me that there is divine purpose in what feels like heartache. In His unwaning wisdom, He revealed to me that our family is the tree that is planted by streams of water, whose leaf does not wither, who yields bright, sweet, healthy fruit; the family who prospers in whatever they do. (Psalm 1:3) My father did not express grief at the movement of his children. I know he saw his children as arrows in his quiver for the battle of the Kingdom. (Psalm 127:3-5 NIV)

Mom originally wanted only two children. Daddy wanted only three. But they trusted the Lord to give them the number He wanted. He gave them six. Psalm

127:3 says that “Children are a heritage from the Lord.” A heritage is something reserved for someone, an inheritance given to someone by reason only of birth. My five siblings and I were reserved for my parents. They inherited six children at birth. God always knew how many arrows He would reward them with and how effective they would be for His kingdom.

Daddy said that his children were moving far and wide because they were seeds spread around the world. God is truly a covenant God. He planted a tree when my parents met (well, He planted the tree long before them actually). The roots of the tree grew deep in the rich soil of truth by the flowing streams of God’s law. The trunk grew thick and the branches spread.

As a tree grows stronger and healthier, its branches spread further, the roots dig deeper, and more seeds are released. Not just the seeds of children, but of every fruit borne by the gospel. The seeds are not released to fall to the ground around the base of the tree and grow up around it, surrounding the tree in a tiny dense cluster in the middle of a wide open plain, stunting each others’ growth…No, the seeds are meant to be cast into the wind and carried as far as it will take them, to scatter by every method possible so that they are planted where no tree has yet taken root; where they can stand firmly anchored in Christ, spreading their own strong branches wide and sharing with those in need. Sharing the solace and comfort of their cool shade, the home and sustenance to many creatures in the safety of their branches, the steady faithfulness of their solid trunk, the grounded wisdom told in the contours and scars of their bark, the sweet sustenance of their refreshing fruit, their fighting strength and hope through the harsh winters, the testimony to a faithful God of their ever returning buds, the bright beauty and renewal of their blossoms, the vibrant health of their lush leaves, the joy of their dancing branches, the call to praise of their crown ever pointing and reaching toward the sky and the obedience and excitement of their seeds releasing from the tree into every direction spreading trees out across the world.

“…And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life…” (Matthew 19:29 ESV)

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isaiah 52:7 NIV)

God, do not cease to do your work in us, making us competent ministers of the gospel of Christ. (2 Cor. 3:6 NIV) I know my grief stemmed from the feeling that my family somehow belonged to me, as if they were my hands and feet being taken from me. But Christ, we are your body. (2 Cor. 12:2- 27) In fact, even I am not my own. “You are not your own. You were bought at a price…” (1 Cor. 6:20)

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37 NIV)

My grief was a distrust in my faithful God. It was a clinging to what was “mine.” It was a love of other people more than a love for my heavenly Father. Help us, Father, to “lose” or give up the things and people that are our “ life” in order that we may love, trust and follow you more. Help us to take up our cross and lay down our lives and the things that we feel we have a right to so that we will find abundant life in you and see more clearly the abundant life you have already provided. Thank you for being Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides.