A grain of Wheat that Dies to Bear Fruit

I am Walking with Him today as are so many others- visit the link below....

We are very familiar with the phrase, "We must be empty to be full."  But do we understand it in truth?  Do we really know what it means?

This is another bead on the string I am creating of the various posts surmising my walk with Him these past weeks.  If you have time, read last week's post as it was the centerpiece-here.  I  have called it the "centerpiece" because it was about then that I felt a turning.  A turning up- where I was beginning to learn the lessons, not just walking through the mire perplexed.  I realize as I write presently that I am presumptively thinking that it will be "up, up" from here.  "Up and out"- never to go there again. 

But I also realize that life is not like that.   There is an ebb and flow.  There are valleys and mountain tops.  By God's goodness He does not let us drown in the mire and get lost in the valleys.  By His grace He moves us "up and out".  By His wisdom He allows us to traverse the valleys because He knows that only in the valleys can we see the majesty of the mountain top.  Only where there is an ebb, an emptiness, a dessert, can we appreciate the flow of fullness.  Only in the flow of disaster, turmoil, life's aches that bring the flow up to our noses in deluge, can we appreciate the peace of the ebb.

I am still learning the nuggets of Life and Wisdom.  I have not graduated yet because sometimes I squall like a newborn wanting comfort instead of hunger and release instead of hardship.

But He turns these nuggets into gold as I am taken through the Refiner's fire.

Here is one nugget made into a golden bead for my necklace-

When I am empty I become full of all God wants me to be.



"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."    -John 12:24

Those days not so very long ago I really did feel like a broken seed being laid upon the parched earth.  That is what I meant at the beginning of this post- We know cognitively that we must decrease and He must increase.  But have you ever experienced what this means in your emotional, spiritual being?  I cannot tell you how you can.  I can only testify that I was led through this experience.  Do we all have to experience this to have a deeper walk with Him?  I do not think so.   Again I can only say that when I was so dry, so pressed down that I could not get up on my own, so bewildered, so empty- Spirit whispered the above scripture to my heart and I understood. 

That great paradox.  Yes, Jesus was referring to Himself in the context of that scripture, but the truth also was revealed that unless I become nothing no fruit can come from my life.  And not just "become nothing" but to realize that I AM NOTHING.  I saw with my spiritual eyes that without Him I am NO good.  Nothing good within me dwells.  A moment before this experience I would have attested to the same but in only a cognitively affirming way.  This was different.  This was an experiential way of Spirit showing spirit.

I hope to keep this in my heart's grasp the rest of this life time for it magnifies His grace to me.

"Grace, grace, wonderful grace.  Grace that pardons from all my sin."

So therein lies the paradox.  I am nothing.  But when yielded to Him, broken, in losing my life I am able to bear much fruit.  I would rather take the broken lot to yield a cornucopia than the lonely seed route any day.  How about you?