There once was a man who found himself in the desert. He looked upon the baron openness of the endless sea of sand. He saw the rolling dunes that have taken their shape from years of blowing sand. The little ripples within them that make them look like waves of water flowing to the horizon. No matter where the man looked, all he saw was the vast open desert around him, how was he to survive. In his pocket, he found a bag full of seeds, he had no idea how the seeds got there, but there they were. The man found a flat patch within the rolling dunes and he put his seeds into the ground. He could have eaten the seeds, and satisfied his hunger for the day, but what about tomorrow, or the next day, how could he survive? Would eating that bag of seeds all in one sitting give him the energy to make it out of the desert, he did not know, so he did what was in his heart and he planted them. It took some time, but eventually, it rained, not a lot, but just enough. The man awoke one morning to find that the seeds had started to grow. Before he knew it, he had enough food to last him a long time, and from that crop, came more seeds, to plant again and again. It wasn't long that the man realized, he no longer wanted to escape the desert, he was quite content living there. It did not rain often, but it did rain enough to keep him from being thirsty, and his crops were bountiful enough to keep him fed. All he had to do, was make one decision, eat the seeds, or plant them. What would you have done?
Moral- The vast desert is our lives. Sometimes we muddle through life and find ourselves in a place where we feel very empty and alone. We look upon our lives and think of them as endless sea's of dispair, where we cannot find an oasis. We want all our needs to be satisfied for us. When we feel alone, we blame God, we ask, if there was a God why would he put me in this desert, why doesn't he give me an oasis. The fact is, he didn't put us in the desert, we put ourselves there, we seldom credit God when things go good for us, but boy do we blame him when times are bad. We are given a choice, you can satisfy your earthly needs right here and now, live for the moment, or for the day. But in reality, how long will that feeling last, how long before we are hungry again, and we think back to that bag of seeds that we ate greedily in one sitting. The other choice is seeking God, and accepting Christ in our hearts. By being wise, and doing what we know is right, we take Gods word and we give it to others. We accept the word of the Lord and then we plant that seed into someone else. It is our task as good Christians to witness and spread the word. God will provide the water, trust in the Lord, and the seed that you have planted will grow and bear good fruit, and within that fruit, is more seeds. Before you know it, you are standing in a forest, it is no longer the empty desert you once thought it was. If you do not think this can happen, just wait. If you are reading this, it is because I too was once in a desert. But I followed the word of the Lord. I started planting seeds. If you have read this blog or any before it, a seed has been planted in you. It is not up to me or you when God will provide the water, just trust that someday it will rain. The water that pours on you is your baptism. And when you get to a point where you are planting seeds to feed others, you realize, as I have, the life that you save, is your own. JT
*A sign I read at a church- A hypocrite is not himself on Sunday's*
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