Day 7: Promise of Renewal
"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24).
Our Father in heaven, in Your intricate masterplan, You created physical and natural laws— timeless, and unchanging, consistent and trustworthy. As only You can, You bring growth from dormancy, life from death.
In Your amazing wisdom You created unceasing cycles of endings and beginnings, repose and renewal. A single seed buried in the depths of the earth, under cover of darkness and lifelessness, springs up into new and abundant life following the laws of Your grand design. You have promised that “As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:22).
Sovereign Lord, just as You created laws that govern the physical and natural world, You set in place spiritual laws that govern our very existence. And because all Your laws—from the highest order of the spiritual—to the lowest order of the physical—are perfect in design and consistency, You also bring growth from dormancy, and life from death in the spiritual realm.
Our Lord Jesus was the perfect model, the ultimate example of laying down His life in death, so that in His resurrection, He could offer the gift of life to all humanity. And He has asked us to follow His example—to lay down our life; to die to self; to take up our cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23).
Help us, O Lord! Help us to surrender our lives in service and sacrifice—trusting You to produce many seeds from the single kernel we lay down to Your will. Help us not to love our life in this world in such a way that causes us to lose it (John 12:25). Give us an eternal perspective so we don't gain the whole world, yet forfeit [our] soul (Matthew 16:26).
Omnipotent God, thank You for the flawless details of Your creative power. Thank You for the surety that You raise us from death to life. Thank You for Your promise of rebirth and renewal—for times of new growth when we can say, "See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land (Song of Songs 2:11-12).
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