All growth requires an external source of power.
These two beans sat dormant for years. One week later, the one on the left was still just a bean, dormant and seemingly dead for all practical purposes. The one on the right came to life. What caused this dramatic difference? Just a little water.
Once touched by water, something inside the bean changed. A new life that it had never known took hold. The bean ceased to exist, and in its place a plant began to grow, in an ongoing pursuit of water, light and life.
My experience of coming to God was much the same. I existed for many years, self-assured I was who I should be. But then I experienced the touch of God in my life, and I felt something change inside me. It was as though there was a new life in me, changing me, creating something anew and giving me a yearning for something beyond me. I found my spiritual roots seeking their water, thirsting for the words in the Bible, a source of wisdom far greater than I could ever have learned on my own, even if I lived a hundred years. And like a seedling, I found myself reaching for light, God’s spirit within me that would illuminate my newly awakened soul.
I later found these similarities I felt to a seed coming to life in the words of the Bible. In the Old Testament, God says through the prophet Isaiah:
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)
So which will you be: A human “bean,” saying, “No, I don’t need the light and water of God. I can do it on my own.” Or will you be a human being, seeking God as the only source of true life, the only one who can change you into something beyond your greatest expectations.
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Words of Jesus Christ in John 12:24-25
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17