It’s the pretty time of year. Flowers bloom, bunnies abound and days last longer. Easter is coming but first, deep darkness. Has God ever taken you into the dark where all is quiet and nothing on earth seems to be happening? Where God seems completely silent and you’re convinced He’s hung you out to dry? Rejoice friend because it’s good news and here’s why: It proves God can trust you with silence…because He knows that death produces life. Just days before His crucifixion, Jesus said these remarkable words:
“Very truly I tell you, 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.” John 12:24 (NIV)
We’re those seeds His crucifixion produced and there’s only one way for any seed to obtain life. Just like Christ on Good Friday, our seed must die. It sinks into the ground, hidden from view, pressed on all sides, often stepped on, sometimes crushed. Buried deep through pounding rain, freezing snow and relentless sun for a season until the hard outer shell softens and cracks, letting the life spill forth. First comes the root, pushing further down still…
…because down is the only way up. Humility before honor, faith before sight, death before life.
I detest the dark but that’s where growth begins and the resurrection of Easter springs forth. And, it’s where we learn to hear His voice. As we’re on our faces, continuing to press in when it makes no sense, suddenly we begin to hear: deep calling unto deep. His deep calling to the deepest part of us but only when we surrender to the quiet and the dark.
The seed, nourished from pushing roots far into the ground, takes up sustenance transforming our brokenness into beauty. A tiny green shoot breaks through and what looked dead and useless cracks open and resurrects. The vibrant green in marked contrast to the hard, dark soil.
Are you willing to go into the dark place to hear the only voice worth listening to, to go down so low you can hear His deep calling to yours? We live in a world saturated by the fake and shallow and we’re desperate for the authentic. We cry out for anyone willing to pay the price and follow hard after God. We cry out for the ones willing to be broken bread and poured out wine.
We spin our wheels trying to be good when all along He’s calling us to die, to live the crucified life, allowing Him to put us into the ground where it’s cold, dark, and lonely. Only there can we be transfigured into something new, nourishment for some, seed for many.
His Spirit pierces and burns this truth: we are chosen. His beauty begs to abide with us. The ones who rejected, mocked and spit. The ones who gladly crucified. Let the stone of stumbling and rock of offense turn our rock-hard seed-hearts into hearts beating only for Him.
Let His resurrection become your redemption.
Kate Battistelli: author of The God Dare, and Growing Great Kids-Partner with God to Cultivate His Purpose in Your Child’s Life. She’s mom to GRAMMY award-winning artist Francesca Battistelli and blogs at www.KateBattistelli.com
