Once upon a time there was a seed. This seed, we shall name her Diana, lived in Seedville with all of the other seeds. She had a good life. She was happy being a seed, living in Seedville with all of the other seeds.
One day Diana woke up with a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. The best way that she could verbalize this feeling was that there had to be more to life than what she was currently experiencing. It was as if she had a hole in her life that was longing to be filled. She quickly wrote off this new feeling as that hazy shade of winter that one sometimes experiences when waking up from a deep sleep. So, she got up and started her day.
Yet, this nagging feeling kept creeping back up into her consciousness again and again. Suddenly, all of her normal daily activities seemed hollow, not as rewarding and pleasurable as they had been in the past. And she began to notice that she wasn’t as happy as she had been in days gone by. Moments of worry, about what she wasn’t able to pinpoint, started to infiltrate her daily routine. She just couldn’t shake it, this nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach, that there was more to life than what she was currently experiencing.
So, Diana started trying new things in order to recapture the happiness that she had once experienced. She started to go out every night to the local clubs and she made some new friends. She experimented with drugs. She had several casual sexual relationships. Yet, all she found was hangovers, walks of shame and still a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that there had to be something more to life.
So, she took a different approach and she threw herself into her work. She landed some big accounts, got promoted, moved out to the country, bought a horse and lots of fancy cars. She took extravagant vacations and ate in all of the finest restaurants. She slept on silk sheets but she continued to wake up with that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that there had to be something more to life.
Diana wasn’t a religious seed. Yes, she had gone to church when she was younger, but church became largely irrelevant to her. Deep down she believed that there was a God, but she had no personal relationship with that God. She had relegated God to specific occasions like weddings, funerals and the all too polite “I’ll pray for you” in those awkward moments where you don’t know what else to say. Since Diana hadn’t been able to find a cure to that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach through alcohol, drugs, casual sex, career, money or extravagant living, she decided to give God a try.
The following Sunday she got up and went to Seedville Christian Church, the church of her youth. She didn’t know what to expect, since it had been so long since she had attended a church service. All she knew is that everything that she had tried, up to that point, hadn’t worked at removing that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. She desperately wanted to be happy again. Maybe, just maybe, going back to church would help the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Well, the message that day at church was that a seed has to die to itself in order for their true purpose to be realized. Diana learned that she had a higher purpose, higher than simply being happy living as a seed in Seedville. She learned that she had the God-given potential of being a great and mighty tree. She learned that the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach was her God-given design, her purpose, longing to become reality. It was who she was destined to be, struggling to be set free from who she was.
As the pastor preached, Diana yearned to know what to do next. After the service she went forward and asked to be saved from herself and that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. To which the pastor replied, “Allow God to plant you.” “How do I do that?” Diana retorted. To which the pastor said, “Surrender.” “Stop trying to fill that hole in your life on your own. Allow God to plant you, so that you can be who you were created to be.” And the pastor and Diana prayed for God to plant her and to nurture her, so that she could be who God had created her to be.
That night Diana slept like she hadn’t slept in a very long time. She was overwhelmed by a sense of peace and completeness. All of those nagging feelings had left the pit of her stomach and she dreamed. She dreamed of the hand of God picking her up and cradling her. She dreamed of the hand of God placing her in the ground. She dreamed of rising from that ground, not as a seed, but as a mighty oak tree. She dreamed of her limbs reaching out toward the sun and her leaves shading the ground below. She dreamed of birds nesting in her branches. And she dreamed of producing seeds that would leave and become their very own trees.
It was at that moment that she finally realized that she was no longer dreaming. She was simply being all that God had intended her to be, from the very beginning. She experienced a moment of sadness as she realized all of the time, talents and treasures that she had wasted on years of searching for happiness, back in Seedville. But as the wind blew through her leaves and the birds sang in her branches, she heard the voice of God say “Well done, good and faithful servant”. And she felt the peace and the happiness that she had been longing for all those years.