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Lessons of Life
71
Life Through Death
The lesson of seed sowing teaches liberality. “The one who sows
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sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully.”
2 Corinthians 9:6
, NRSV.
The Lord says, “Blessed are you who sow beside all waters.”
Isaiah 32:20
. To sow beside all waters means to give wherever help
is needed. This will not tend to poverty. By casting it away the
sower multiplies the seed. So it is that by imparting we increase
our blessings. God’s promise assures a sufficiency, that we may
continue to give.
By the casting of grain into the earth the Savior represents His
sacrifice for us. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and
dies,” He says, “it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much
grain.”
John 12:24
. Only through the sacrifice of Christ, the Seed,
could fruit be brought forth for the kingdom of God.
So it is with all who bring forth fruit as workers together with
Christ. Self-love, self-interest, must perish. The life must be cast
into the furrow of the world’s need. But the law of self-sacrifice is
the law of self-preservation. The husbandman preserves his grain by
casting it away. So the life that will be preserved is the life that is
freely given in service to God and humanity.
Prepare the Heart for the Seed of Truth
As parents and teachers try to teach these lessons, the work
should be made practical. Children should themselves prepare the
soil and sow the seed. As they work, parents and teachers can explain
the garden of the heart, with the good or bad seed sown there. They
can explain that as the garden must be prepared for the natural seed,
so the heart must be prepared for the seed of truth. As the seed is
sown in the ground, they can teach the lesson of Christ’s death, and
the truth of the resurrection as the blade springs up. As the plant
grows, the comparisons between the natural and the spiritual sowing
may be continued.
Young people should be instructed in a similar way. From the
tilling of the soil, lessons may constantly be learned. No one settles
on a raw piece of land with the expectation that it will yield a harvest