In our rarely-used family room, there is a shelf that is used to thoroughly dry the seeds we are saving for next season. We will plant them in the spring for such culinary delights as Stevia or Basil, or pretty plants like the upright, spikey Celosia that I discovered in a friend’s garden.
As we were preparing for holiday guests, a few of those open containers were accidentally knocked over and seeds spilled. By the time I discovered them, I could not tell whether the seeds were Cleome or Celosia. For that matter, with my aging eyes, they could have been black pepper.
Knowing that the two most likely of other possibilities produce far different seedlings, we packaged them in envelopes marked “mystery seeds.”
The DNA that God put in those tiny seeds will determine what will happen as they grow. If they turn out to be Basil, they will have a home by my tomatoes.
If Celosia, they will be interspersed with other plants to add a little late season interest in the garden. If they have pretty, five-pointed leaves, they will be planted in the farthest back areas of the flower border, as Cleomes can reach five feet in height.
I won’t – indeed I can’t — determine what the seeds will produce. God has that already pre-arranged in the plant’s DNA. Similarly, we don’t determine the final judgment of our lives, it has been pre-determined based on the rules set up long ago by an all-powerful, all- knowing, and all-seeing God.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
For the one who sows to his own flesh will
from the flesh reap corruption, but the one
who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit
reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in
doing good, for in due time we will reap if
we do not grow weary. So then, while we have
opportunity, let us do good to all people,
and especially to those who are of the
household of the faith” (Galatians 6:7–10).
While God has predetermined what our “seed” or actions will result in, mankind seems to think otherwise.
Modern society seems to think that it has “evolved” so much that it can set its own social mores and values, and God will simply have to comply with the wishes of the majority. I have news for you if you believe this falsehood; GOD is the majority. He outvotes us every time. It is no accident that the name of God is plural.
He is our maker, we are only His creation. We don’t get to choose, or to tell God what’s what. We do not have the right to say, as a celebrity recently said “It’s time there was an amendment to the Bible.”
“You turn things around! Shall the potter be
considered as equal with the clay, that what
is made would say to its maker, ‘He did not
make me;’ or what is formed say to him who
formed it, ‘He has no understanding?'”
(Isaiah 20:16 NASB)
“You shall not add to the word which I
command you, nor take anything from it, that
you may keep the commandments of the LORD
your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy
4:2).
What are you planting in your life, and trusting to feed your soul? Do you know where those seeds came from? You will surely reap what you sow, no matter how hard you try to change it.
–by Christine Berglund