Dear Friends,
Hope all is doing well! Isn’t it beautiful outside? It is so good to just sit in the sunshine. Let’s all agree we’ll take a moment to let the sun shine on us today! I’m in!
Hopefully you are having a good week. Remember to bring your CANNED GOODS to the Wesley Foundation to participate in the campus wide food drive sponsored by CSF to help restore the food levels at our local help missions. This is such an important ministry. Also, tonight is FREE FOOD, and our program. Tonight we finish up with our study of the parable of the soils. We will really look at what it means to be fruitful. You also may want to come by and look at the Chapel. It got painted as a part of our work day last weekend, and it looks really good! Who knew that “butternut” was such an amazing color?
Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:
On the window seal in our bathroom at home sit a couple of terra cotta pots. They measure about two inches high, an inch and half wide. And growing within them are several tiny shamrock sprouts. While I was gone on spring break I arranged for my boys to have little gifts to open everyday, so they wouldn’t feel so far away from me. I picked up the little pots at Target, complete with dehydrated soil, a seed pack, and instructions. A couple of weeks ago the boys and I carefully added water to the dehydrated soil pellet, mixed it into each pot, separated out the recommended number of seeds, and placed them in the reconstituted soil, with a light blanket of dirt on top. Every day we go to window seal to see how our “potted plants” are doing.
It’s quite amazing really. Since I only paid a dollar each for them, I wasn’t expecting much. But it has been pretty cool to see little green clovers poking their way through the dirt, seeking the sunlight, drinking in the water that little boys slosh all over them. I am reminded of Christ’s words about faith as a grain of mustard seed. Even though it is the smallest of all the seeds, it grows into some more shrub! I believe clover seed is smaller still. How cool is it that something so tiny could have so much life in it? And that its life could spring up so quickly given the right conditions?
It makes me ponder once again the mystery and majesty of Easter. Jesus also said of seeds that it is only when they die to their seed life, and are buried, that they can experience the true life they were created for in the beginning. Of course He was referring to Himself, and trying to help His disciples understand that He too must die so that something greater could be born. They couldn’t see past their limited perspective that dying to His earthly life was actually a wonderful, marvelous thing. And tougher still was their understanding when He suggested that they also had to die to life as they knew it for His life to take root in them. It’s crazy, but true. We have to let go of the penny we hold tightly in our hands so that we can receive the vast treasure He holds in His. But we will never have enough room in our hearts for His gifts if we cling stubbornly to what is already within our grasp.
Have you ever wondered what life is like for a seed? It grows within the bloom of the plant that produces it, it is harvested, packaged, and then sits around dormant. For months. For years. Maybe forever. It is almost unbearable to consider that it was created for more, and yet the more that it was made for has to be delayed indefinitely, because packaging takes precedence over dirt. I wonder how many of us are like the seeds that get relegated to indefinite packaging instead of dying to the seed life and finding the life we were made for? I mean, I can understand the objections. Dying to a self-directed life is kind of scary. We are definitely trading the known for the unknown. And for all the control freaks out there this is utmost in unbearable. Of course it sucks when our lives are no longer neatly packaged and predictable. Of course it is way neater, less messy, to have pretty flower pictures on our package, than to actually have to get dirty and grow real ones. But holy cow, where is the fun in that? Where is the adventure? Where is the amazing fragrance and beauty that makes others stop and look and appreciate God’s handiwork? I would much rather spend my days being a reckless, unpredictable, living work of grace than a lifeless picture of what might have been.
Yeah. That’s really how I feel.
So as we draw closer to Easter, let us remember once again the journey that Jesus made to the cross. Let us also remember that the cross has a claim on us too. Just as He gave His life to us, we are invited to give our lives to Him, to let Him direct their course and flow. I know He is so gentle in His invitation, and so generous in the love and understanding that champions every step forward we take to dying to the seed life within us so that REAL LIFE can be born. I know He cheers for us when we get up, disregarding our clumsy attempts that make us fall. He really only wants our best, and is fully equipped to give it to us if we let Him. Let’s let Him.
This is me trusting,
Sami
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Sami Wilson
Campus Minister/Director
WKU Wesley Foundation
United Methodist Campus Ministry
270-842-2880
sami.wilson@wku.edu
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