Tuesday 21 February 2012

little tiny mustard seeds......

Mustard seeds..... the last couple of days they have caught my attention and I have been drawn to look and discover a little more out about them. Why you might ask?! Random! Well I don't know about you and how much of the bible you have read before but there a couple of passages that I have read this last week that I have read loads of time that ignited something in me to dig deeper. What really is this comparison that's talked about? What can I learn? I wanted to look at what a mustard seed was like? How small is small? How big does it grow? What? How? When? Where? My brain was on fire!


"I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible." Matthew 17:20


He said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? To what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and put in his own garden. It grew, and became a large tree, and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches".

And here's what I found out so far. I found it fascinating!

- Mustard seeds are normally about 1mm in size...... thats a 10th of a cm!
- These seeds grown into shrubs/trees that are 20 ft high on average
- The shrub/tree is often as wide as it is high.
- It grows in an irregular shape
- The branches grow very close to the ground
- It grows well in dry temperatures

What did these make me think about? Well as I read these I asked God to prompt me, remind me of who He is and speak to me.....( please bare with me as this is not a theological stance.... this is just allowing God space to use a deeper understanding of His creation and His word to speak deeper!).

The difference between the seed size and the tree it produces is amazing. If you convert 20ft into mm its 6096mm..... that means that the seed grows to be almost 7000 times its size! Thats amazing.... all God asks for is the faith of a mustard seed..... if I have this and give it to him the potential is huge. Like huge. Really really huge.

Its totally fascinating that it grows best in the dry hot environments because so often as I look back over life the times where I have been most aware of my faith are the times when life has been at its hardest. The dry times. The times when God feels silent. The times when all the options aren't looking good. When I'm pondering the why's around loosing your mum at a young age and living with the family complexities as a result. When I'm exhausted and have to remain patient. When quality time for God feels like a fight to get. When my beautiful strong little girl is going through horrid tests to rule out a brain tumor and I'm stuck in the waiting room clinging to God waiting on results, hoping, believing and struggling to have the faith that this will all be ok. The hard times, The dry times. This is when I look back and see growth - honestly life changing growth...... just like the seed grow into plants and trees in the driest conditions. Reassuring. Yes. These dry hard times are fruitful. Phew.....

'God please help me remember this in the midst of the season'.

The inconsistent shape of the growth, close to the ground.....felt like a reminder that its OK that things are perfect. God doesn't require that everything is perfect and just right for us to see faith in action and miracles happen. He's bigger than our inconsistency. But He definitely wants us to be close so we can breathe, drink, absorb..... because He's the one who can feed us and spur us on. He desires to see our mustard seed grow to its full potential and wants to fuel that. He wants to be our food source..... our only fuel source. The Challenge for me.... to never allow anything else to be my food source.

You know I also checked out some images too in my research and the magnified image of a seed spoke hugely to me.....

If you look at it the surface is covered in an interlocking pattern...... each section is a different shape but all are connected. Just made me think how our faith can so often be affected by the people around us for the good or the bad... we each rub off on each other.... the mustard seed despite its intriguing surface once in the ground where its finds food and can be nurtured has the potential in front of it to see absolutely life changing immense growth. We are like the mustard seed. We come just as we are with all the bits that make up our history. We have a choice to either allow God to take all that makes us up and burst into life and ignite the small amount of faith we have or get bogged down in the ugliness of the inconsistency that is humankind.

So I'm left feeling challenged with this...... am I willing to give God my mustard seed size faith? Am I willing to truly put what I have in the hands of the life giver? Do I truly believe I will see mountains moved if I come to God just as I am? Will I keep planting? Life affecting questions if I allow them to be!






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