The Wednesday Word 2.27.08

"[The Kingdom] is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants." Mark 4:31-32

There is so much to share from my time in Israel, but the overall gift was how it made the Scriptures come alive. I want to share some of that with you. This passage, for instance, takes on greater significance now. We think we know what a mustard seed is, but what they sell in Publix is not a mustard seed. A real mustard seed is much smaller, and they are more prevalent in the Middle East. Smaller than a grain of sand. So fine that it seems as if your breath would blow it away. Tiny, tiny seeds. Seemingly insignificant. Sometimes the fragment of the Kingdom in us seems very insignificant. Maybe our faith is small. Maybe our understanding is minute. We beat ourselves up because we can't quite grasp it all or are brand new at faith or not as advanced as we should be. But the gift of the Kingdom is that it doesn't need to start off big. The important thing is that it is planted in us, and that we give that seed a healthy environment in which to grow. There is not seed of the Kingdom that is too small or too new or too simple. The Kingdom will work for itself. We just need to do our part. We are not the seed. We are the soil. Embrace the seed, no matter how small it seems in your life right now.