Seed

“I don’t want to,” I stamped my foot for emphasis and stormed into my bathroom. But storming and stamping did not change His mind.

“It is just too hard and painful. I can’t do it. I won’t do it and You can’t make me,” I nearly stick out my tongue as I obstinately crinkle my face and fold my arms.

His quiet prompting didn’t stop. In my heart I heard Him, “You already did the work, you wrote it out, you paid for the conference, the airline tickets. You will do it.”

It was days before my first She Speaks conference and suddenly I didn’t want to share the story God told me to share. I didn’t want to go on the writers track and meet publishers. I wanted to do it my way…Speakers track, with lessons God taught me in the light not in the dark. Sharing those desperate dark days seemed too raw, too painful.

But God had other plans. I went to the conference book proposal in hand. I handed over pages that recorded the deepest darkest hardest days of my life to be accepted or not by a publishing house. I wondered if I could make it through my pitch without weeping.

I made it through those meetings, I only teared up once or twice. No, I did not get a book deal, but I got confirmation that I was on the right path. I was doing it God’s way.

Doing things God’s way involves dying to myself and what I want so that I can live for Him and in turn share His story in my life with others. It is an honor, but it comes at a price.

Dying to myself, my way, my will, and giving it to Him who has better plans than I could ever imagine. This dying brings life, but it is still dying. It hurts.

I imagine the pain of a seed as it swells and bulges in the moist earth. The root breaks through its skin and it shrieks in pain, but there is life, growth, and freedom in the pain. Slowly the green shoot makes its way toward the sky. It pushes and works its way out of the earth. The seed breathes in the air, soaks in the sun, and drinks in the water, but the fight isn’t over. It must die yearly giving over it’s leaves to the rest of autumn and winter. Only to bloom again and bear fruit for the harvest.

Are we willing to die to ourselves, over and over again so that we can say yes to God? In our dying a harvest is reaped – a harvest in our lives and in the lives around us. Oh, but are we willing to die?