Last week I went & saw an amazing movie called “Soul Surfer” which I would highly recommend seeing! This movie was about a girl who found herself facing a very tough situation, she is a surfer who’s trying to go pro, but in the midst of her biggest opportunity she loses her arm & faces a terrible set back. I realized as I watched this movie, & the girl struggled with her misfortune, she had 2 choices she could make, she could lay down & quit or keep pressing on & realize God had a plan.
I have found myself in situations of adversity many times in my music & ministry as I’m sure many of you have in your life as well, so this week I’d like to look at the difference between being planted & being buried. We too, like the girl in the movie, have choices when we are going through tough times & many times the outcome is based on the way we look at what we are going through.
There is a big difference between being buried & being planted & it boils down to your expectation of what happens next. When you put a seed in the ground you don’t say, “I’m burying this seed.” You say, “I’m planting this seed.” When you plant something you expect it to rise again & come back to life, when something is buried you’re kind of just giving up on it & saying it’s over. There are times for burying & planting, sometimes we have to let something go bury it & move on. The time for planting comes when challenges arise. We all go through difficult times, but we have the seed of Almighty God inside of us! When facing disappointments it sometimes feels like we’re being buried by the cares of life, but the truth is we’ve been planted by God. That means you’re coming back, & not only coming back, but coming back better & stronger than before!
You go in a seed, but God breathes life into your situation & you come out blossomed & produce even more fruit than before, pretty cool huh? What was meant for your harm, God will use for your good! What was meant to destroy you makes you stronger. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been disappointed, discouraged, frustrated & felt lie giving up, but time & time again God would show me He had a plan & was using every situation to strengthen me & help me see the bigger picture He has for my life.
In John 2:24 Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground & is planted, it doesn’t produce fruit. You can store seed somewhere for a lifetime, but it will never become all it was created to be until it is planted in the ground. The seed’s potential is only found after it has been planted, as long as it’s shelved somewhere in comfort, it stays dormant & never reaches it’s potential. The same is true with people who stay in their comfort zone during times of adversity, they play it safe & their potential stays locked on the inside.
Sometimes being planted in the ground is a dark, cold & lonely place for the seed. There is no light, people walk on it & it’s uncomfortable in the ground, but the truth for the seed is it’s not buried, only planted. But when it’s in the ground something supernatural happens, even packed in tons of soil the tiny seed can’t be stopped. The earth around it confronts the bold seed & says, “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t get out, I’m more powerful than you.” But the seed sees it differently & says, “ No, no I’m not buried, I’m planted. I may be down right now but this is only temporary, because the life of God is in me & I have comeback power. I will rise again!”
Time goes by & instead of being this small insignificant seed in the ground it turns into a great tree! What happened? The planted seed had to go through some dark times, lonely nights, there were times the seed thought it would never see brighter days, but it kept pressing on & burst through the darkness into the light & became all that God had intended it to be! I feel this is often what happens in our life, but let’s remember if we are children of God we are never buried only planted so that God make us flourish & be all that He wants us to be.
Please feel free to leave feedback & comments, I love to hear from you all!