It is almost time to decide which seeds to buy for our garden.
I want to take my time in choosing because I almost always make mistakes. One year, I bought round zucchini seeds (Round zucchini are the worst kind of squash and only fit for pigs), and last year, I bought pole beans instead of bush beans.
My mistakes were only noticeable over some time. It wasn’t until the beans started vining up that I knew there was a problem.
Seeds hold so much potential, and it is fun to envision the harvest. No matter what I envision as the end result, it really all depends on which seeds I choose.
The Apostle Peter wanted the church to consider what kind of seed their spiritual lives had grown from. He wrote to them: “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…”
Their new lives in Christ had sprouted from seed that had eternal qualities. Even better than Jack’s magic beans that took him to a higher plane, this imperishable seed produced abiding results.
And what was this seed? The word of God.
I recently bought some children’s music that uses only Scripture as lyrics. The tunes are catchy, but as I sit rocking my younger children, the profound truths of His word feed my soul. “He is the image of the invisible God…” His Word is transforming nap time into worship time.
There are so many listening choices these days: podcasts, news, or audiobooks.
But only the Word of God abides.
Webster defines what it means to abide: “remain, continue, endure, await, dwell.”
The tiny, five letter word abide is like a seed in itself. It grows from continuing beside to dwelling with. It doesn’t shrivel or turn brown with the onset of Autumn. It continues. It dwells. It endures.
Contrasted with all other seed, that is remarkable.
Peter thought of Isaiah’s words: “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of our God remains forever.”
It abides so that we can abide with Him. No chance of a round zucchini here! Everything produced from this seed is lasting. Peter agrees: “And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
What seed are you choosing for the garden of your life? If we have grown from the imperishable, then there’s no reason to go back to planting the perishable. His Word should inform every area of our lives.
It abides, enabling us to do just as He said: “Whoever abides in Me and I in Him, He it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Envisioning the harvest isn’t difficult then. A life that produces God’s fruit because it abides with Him will continue to be an abiding, eternal life even after the autumn and winter have come and gone.
Sarah Dixon Young 