I get pregnancy progress emails several times a week now. One that came the other day informed me of something pretty amazing. If this baby is a girl, she already has millions of eggs inside of her – all that she will ever have, in fact.
Thinking on this sparked something in me. If I’m carrying a girl, I’m not only carrying my child but my grandchildren as well. And all of this before the rest of the world can recognize that I’m carrying anything.
Sometimes the majesty of creation leaves me speechless. That a woman can be carrying people inside of her whom she won’t actually see until decades to come is mind-boggling. David’s words capture me in awe: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Ps. 139:6, NIV).
I was sitting with my mom and grandmother the other day and realized God was giving me a visual of this generational thing I’ve been meditating on. When my grandmother was pregnant with my mom, she was also pregnant with my sister and me. She was carrying my mom’s life, which would tell a story spanning decades…but my prenatal mom was carrying life of her own: the seeds of my sister and me – lives that would also span decades and tell their own stories.
At one point, we were all inside of the same womb. A few of us were just in seed form.
Now here we are, decades later… no longer seeds but full-grown adults with stories to tell. So much life has been released and lived through my grandmother’s long-ago pregnancy. There have been beautiful days and extremely hard days, belly laughs, amazing friendships, marriages, answered prayers, tears, and unspeakable joy. And all of it started inside of her womb.
What strikes me in all this is how vivid a visual it offers for invisible Kingdom realities. There are seeds inside of a woman’s seed; something about this leaves me in speechless awe. But perhaps more breathtaking is the fact that this ‘seed inside of a seed’ miracle is the way the Kingdom operates all the time.
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, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade” (Mark 4:31-32, NIV).
In the Kingdom, things always start in seed form. And seed form always entails hiddenness, smallness, and the chance of being deemed insignificant.
First, think about this in terms of pregnancy. “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body” (Ps. 139:15-16, NIV).
It’s appropriate that the Spirit’s words through David speak not of being hidden but of being seen by the One who matters. These words blot out a lie so easy to believe when all you have is a seed – the one that says that smallness and hiddenness equal purposelessness.
Now, think about this in terms of life in the Kingdom. Everything God does both in and through our lives starts as a seed. This is true both in our coming to know Jesus (think how many seeds are sown into some people before they bloom, causing the person to surrender to Christ) and in living out our destiny in Him.
He has placed gifts, passions, and strengths within each of us that are meant to be developed and released into the world around us. But the call of God always starts in seed form. It’s this truth that many people miss. They’re expecting something big, visible, and established from the start…and when they can’t see it quickly enough, they give up and walk away from the promises of God. Just imagine if we did this with pregnancy: “I thought I would give birth to an adult… this is only a baby!”
We can be guilty not only of misevaluating our own callings but also of misevaluating others’ callings. We’ll look at people through natural eyes rather than eyes of the Spirit – and when we don’t perceive them or their pursuits as logical or numerically successful, we wrongly assume they’re floundering or have missed God.
The truth we’re missing in these assumptions about ourselves and others is that God always starts things in seed form. He’s telling a long-term, far-reaching story – one that will take quite a while to fully tell.
I’m reminded of Heidi Baker’s salvation experience. To natural eyes, that night’s altar call was somewhat disappointing. Only one person came forward in response to the preacher’s invitation to meet Jesus. What natural eyes wouldn’t have ever seen that night, though, is that this one person’s ‘yes’ to God would eventually shake Africa with revival fire. That one person just happened to be Heidi Baker, the woman who is now well on her way to fulfilling her vision of taking in 1 million orphaned children before she goes home to the Lord.
The Holy Spirit was a seed planted inside of Heidi that night she said ‘yes’ to Jesus. And that preacher could never have known the magnitude of the seed inside of Heidi’s seed. Natural eyes didn’t see it, but God already knew the seed inside of her carried the promise of a million fathered orphans.
And it doesn’t stop there. Every orphan-turned-son-or-daughter now carries their own Kingdom seeds, each with promise of its own. Friend, are you starting to see the power of a seed?
C.S. Lewis also comes to mind. God planted promise inside of him in the forms of a brilliant mind and a gift to write. Only… he started as an atheist. Those Kingdom seeds he carried were completely hidden for so many years. Then the light turned on, and his intellect suddenly came under the Lordship of Christ. As a Christian, his writing became a conduit that released life into every heart that encountered his words. The seed that was inside his seed grows in magnitude to this day.
C.S. Lewis left this earth more than fifty years ago…yet, by the thousands, people continue to be changed by encountering his writing. Every time someone receives life through his words, the Kingdom seed that he carried multiplies all the more and plants new seeds of promise inside of each reader.
If I take the time to consider the vastness held inside of a single seed, I’m arrested by wonder. The Father and His beautiful Kingdom of which we are a part are unfathomable. Unstoppable. Untamable.
And Friend, Heidi Baker, C.S. Lewis, and my grandmother aren’t the only ones carrying seeds. You carry your own. There are things the Father planted in you long ago that are waiting to be released.
Some of you have felt a stirring to get out of your comfort zone… Share your story. Pursue the degree. Admit your sin. Start the art classes. Get back into church. Give the friendship another try. Step up to the plate as a parent. Start volunteering. Be the first to forgive. Write the letter. Pursue adoption. Confront the issue. Go on the mission trip. Start the business. Use your gift.
On the one hand, it feels risky. And on the other, maybe you’ve felt that what you have to offer would be insignificant. Stop letting these things hold you back. Friend, the seed of God is inside of you. You carry promise. And the promise you carry holds promises of its own. There’s a seed inside your seed.
There are people who are going to come alive when you start operating in your gift. Your releasing what God has put inside of you is going to ignite His life in others. This destined thing He has for you doesn’t start “one day when” but here and now. Right where you are with the tools you already have in your hand.
Friend, release your seed. By His empowering grace, give what He’s put inside of you to give. And just like a mother who carries and gives birth to her child, watch the seed grow. Watch it impart promise to others. Watch it release seeds of its own.
Only Heaven will fully reveal the magnitude of the seed inside your seed.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on hayleyhewitt.com
Featured Image by Melanie Brown
