From Death to New Life
Mustard Seed Chronicles: Story Time with LU Grandma
I never cease to be totally amazed by our God’s omniscience and creativity in nature and how it relates to our lives!
A dear friend has a Christmas cactus that belonged to her grandmother, so it is well over 50 years old and it still blooms – not at Christmas – but in the spring of the year. My mom had several that were huge, and they bloomed every year from as long as I can remember (and that is a LONG time!). Both my friend’s Grandma and my mom have been gone for a long time, but the cactuses still bloom!
Once, my friend saw a couple of leaves that had fallen off and were pretty shriveled up. She stuck them into some potting soil, and they grew new plants! This is the part that blows my mind! When God spoke plants into existence, I wonder did He have to think about all of the ways that plants and trees would propagate, where they would flourish, how much water each would need for millennia before He created every kind simply by speaking them into existence in ONE DAY?
Genesis 1:11-13 (NLT): Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation–every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.”
And that is what happened. The land produced vegetation with all sorts of seed-bearing plants and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. “And God saw that it was good. And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day.”
It is hard to wrap our finite minds around how creation happened and how it continues in our own garden plantings today. And if you know me at all, you know that talking about seeds, trees, and gardens will make me think of our faith and how it grows, too!
Oh, how connected we are, our little seeds of faith to the spiritual truth that God, being omniscient and eternal, knows every single one of us by name. He knows when we will be born and when we will die, who our parents are or will be, and every moment in between. And like the two shriveled cactus leaves being restored by potting soil, the change He makes in us is an eternal transformation!
In Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV) tells us: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (emphasis mine).
Prayer:
Dear Father, Abba! What a wonderful and precious thing it is to be spiritually dead but brought to life so that we can bless others! We praise and thank You, LORD.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen!
Meet the Author
Timi Plyter
“LU Grandma”
Lead Parent Advocate
