“In each season, you will find that the secret to Growing Slow comes in the waiting as the Lord plants seeds into the precious, yielding soil of you. In this place, tucked under the dirt, you will grow roots deep enough to push forth the fruit of a life worth living.”- Jennifer Dukes Lee
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels – a plentiful harvest of new lives.”- John 12:24 (NLT)
In Chapter 4 (“The Ancient Way of Growing Slow”) of Growing Slow, Jennifer Dukes Lee notes our natural tendency to run away from the unknown. Because the human will doesn’t easily bend to God’s plan to accept whatever comes our way.
Certainly, Jennifer reminds us, we all want the fruit, healing, building up, love and keeping God offers. But, we don’t want the weeping and the losing. Yet, as Jesus said in John 12:24, the seed in the ground must die to produce a lot of grain. Therefore, our:
- will must die
- desire to rush through hard seasons must die
- demands, misguided plans, and selfish ambitions must die
However, some heartbreaks compound a problem because you don’t have a category in which to place them. Or a name to give them. As a result, Jennifer’s friend Anjuli Paschall puts these kinds of heartbreaks in the ‘bad things that happened’ box. In her book Stay, Anjuli explains:
“We each have a trauma, or a ‘bad thing that happened’. . . . No matter how horrible or small and painful or disgusting it was, stop running from it. Stop pretending it’s okay or isn’t there because that trauma is going to bury you in lies . . . Stop running. I beg of you. Stay.”
So, the plan to sit down and stay both grounds and confronts us – keeps us sane and drives us crazy. But, we must stay with it. Consequently, don’t cut yourself off from it all – or run away and hide. Instead, grow slow.
Today’s question: How does the secret of growing slow come in the waiting? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The rearranged places where God comes close”
