CASTING SEED

I have been wrestling for awhile, trying to decide what part I play in the "Big Picture". They say when you reach my age, your nest may be empty...but your womb is bursting with new life, creativity that has been on hold for decades, while tending to those you gave life to. There are so many things that I love, like music, worship, writing, teaching, photography, encouraging those in need, creating beautiful things...the list goes on. I find myself spending more time trying to decide what I should be doing than actually doing! I think it's because I want to be busy "being about my Father's business". I want my fingerprints to be found alongside His. I want the investment of my life to be for the biggest bang! Yet, too often I look at the seed in my hand, in my womb, and feel like it is too tiny and insignificant to make a difference. I compare my seed to that of others and theirs seems to have so much more bling! Mine is tiny and...well...appears lifeless!

I realize that all I can give away is what I have been given. I hear You whisper, that You don't require me to produce extravagant seed. You only ask that I sow the seed I have been given and because it originated in You, extravagance will be released. No matter how tiny the seed appears,Your extravagance is inherit within! You alone know the magnitude of the life found in a single seed. If I will but cast it into the wind, You will cause it to flourish!

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SOWING SEED IN WINTER     

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. Psalm 126:5-6

It's winter. I must watch my tongue, to not become a murmuring Israelite. I don't like the winter, especially here in Oklahoma. I remember trying to plant spring bulbs my first winter here. It was only November, but no matter how I tried to pierce the soil in my pot, it would not give. It finally occurred to me, the soil must be frozen! I'm from the Houston area and you can plant almost all year long. It took all I had not to march inside and pack my bags to return home. I don't like the hardness of winter. I don't want frozen soil!

Maybe it's because it's a little too close to my own soil, the soil of my heart. The place my life plays out. I find my life, time and time again, not looking anything like I had imagined. I didn't sign up for this one. It's nothing like the brochure I had envisioned as a child. Mountains are beautiful and breathtaking from a distance. It's a whole different story when you stand at the base of one realizing you must overtake it, or be overtaken.

It seems I find my life constantly being confronted with another opportunity to dig up the hard ground and make room for the seed of Love to make His abode. It's not like He tells me in advance, rather I seem to wake up to the deafening sound of machinery as it tills its way into yet, another one of my hard places. This may be a new patch of land, but I've been here before. I've learned the hard way that I can't stop the tilling. He is a Master Gardener. He knows best. What once seemed like a restful place in my world is now being ravaged as dirt and weeds fly into the sky as the sharp blades of metal tear back yet another plot of land, that was once hidden.

I have two choices. I can refuse to become a part of the new planting or I can yield my heart and grab my bag of seed. I didn't ask for this kind of terrain in my life, nevertheless, He has unearthed it. What I have learned, in times past, is that He never leaves the work He began in me, before He has delighted me with the outcome. I am always grateful for the beauty that replaced what was once hard soil. He is faithful and true and I can always trust Him.

Many times it is through tears that I reach for His hand. He is not put off with my pain. He does not turn away from my questioning and reasoning. Rather, He waits for me to start the dialogue, the dialogue where I am totally raw with Him and free to release my emotions. It seems it is at those moments He has always drawn closest.

I have learned that He is to be trusted at all times. His ways with me have proven that over and over. I have learned that the journey is more enjoyable when I determine to plant seed along the way. No matter how rough the terrain, no matter how many tears may temporarily blind my vision, I will cast my seed of hope out upon the ruptured earth. Although I go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, I WILL return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with me!

He is Faithful. He is True.                        

DON'T DIE WITH YOUR MUSIC LEFT INSIDE

I saw a sign a few years ago that read "Don't die with your music left inside." It struck a chord within me (no pun intended). The sad idea that I could live out my days and not release my music has haunted me. At times I feel the music is at torrential proportions within me. I get excited at the possibility of it's release...yet I often feel inept to give it the royal birth it deserves.

I believe music is spirit. It has inherent power to transform the atmosphere where it is released. I believe that Love has sown a song in each of our souls. He desires that sound to be released through the living out of our lives. My song is different than yours, for my personality is different than yours.  The root word for personality can be interpreted as "one who sound travels through". We were created to release a sound. His sound!  Everything Love created was created with the "sound" of His voice. He created us in His likeness and therefore I believe we too create with the sound of our own voices.

 

What if every obstacle in life, every intense season of pain and confusion, has been nothing more than a methodical plan of the enemy to keep my voice silent, or even worse...negative? What if every set back and every time my heart suffered rupture, was like an evil game of chess, played by the hand of darkness to keep my song muffled? What if the devils schemes are sent like perfectly drawn arrows to destroy the heavenly tune I carry?

 

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that when we have been hurt and offended we must choose forgiveness "in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes." He schemes using pain to steal our focus...to steal our praise, to steal our song.

 

What if we beat him at his own game and begin to birth the song we were intricately designed to sing? What if the true meaning of life  is giving birth to the music that swells up within us and releasing it back into the heavenlies? It would be like heaven invading earth! What if heaven has already invaded earth, and it's bottled up inside of me, bottled up inside of you...and it's just waiting to be released?

 

Resurrection day is always a beautiful day of reflection for me. Jesus came and lived His life to the full and then He offered it up as the sweetest melody ever released. Resurrection was the moment of earths greatest crescendo! It was at that moment that Heaven truly invaded earth! The veil that separated us from Love was ripped from top to bottom as Love's ballad of invitation floated down to all those below who were made in His image. Every time you and I celebrate this truth, every time we praise His name, we release a heavenly sound that declares to the enemy that he has been defeated and that Love has won! Let us not die with Love's music left inside!

 

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. (Isa. 49:13)

 

 

Photo credit: Jessica Nadine Photography