I want you to imagine stepping into a time machine and travelling back in time about a hundred years. The world is at the beginning of World War II, and Ford Motor Co is cranking out cars. Scheduled flights for passengers have begun. The building of the Lincoln Memorial in DC has begun. Charlie Chaplin is the biggest movie actor. Babe Ruth starts pitching for the Boston Red Sox. A phone like is made across the United States. The Panama Canal opens for business with its first cargo passing through.
Now reach down and grab your smart phone. How would you describe your smart phone to someone in 1914? Stop and think about it for a minute. There is a whole world of experiences that inform our understanding of your smart phone which they have never experienced. They don’t know about computers, or cell towers, or texting. Your description might begin like this. A smart phone is like a magical book that…. It is very hard to adequately explain it without having to explain all the other technologies and experiences that accompany the smart phone.
The Kingdom of God is like…. Jesus often started His parables like this when words just couldn’t capture the reality He wanted to express. Sometimes words just fail. I am sure Jesus could have explained it in human words, but our human experiences fall so short of the reality that any explanation He could give would only lead to limited understanding on our side of the conversation. Human words fail to capture Heaven’s full reality.
Jesus likens spiritual growth to the growth of a seed. There are things about the growth of a seed that we still don’t fully understand, even today. Even with all our wonderful science and research some parts remain unknown to us humans. How much less we know about spiritual growth! One thing we do know, both grow according do predictable patterns. Both seeds and spiritual growth move toward the goal of producing more of itself, more seed to eat and plant and more spiritual seed that gets sown in other’s lives so that it will also produce spiritual fruit in them.
The growth happens even though we don’t know how. Yes, the sun gives energy to the photosynthesis process, and the plant draws water and nutrients from the ground, but how it all happens is still an unseen process. We do know the order of things. The seed germinates, it sends out its first leaves and roots with the energy stored in the seed itself. It continues growing gathering energy from the environment. Eventually it produces seed and the process can start all over again.
A person hears God’s Word and they respond. God causes an internal eternal change in the heart. A desire grows for more of God’s Word. Growth happens in proportion to the nutrients ingested. Eventually God’s Word is shared and another person is awakened by God.
The Arnold Journey 