A wonder of God’s creation is the way in which plants, flowers, grass and trees reproduce themselves. The seeds that are formed sometimes can push the tenderest blade of new life through the hardest soil. No matter how tiny the seed of a tree has inside it the capability of producing roots, the tree trunk, branches and leaves. It contains cells with enough food to start the new growth until roots and leaves can get along by themselves.
There are seeds that retain life for twenty years or more under extreme desert heat and with God-given “time clocks” do not sprout until the right conditions are present. Often this will be through a heavy cloudburst or a spring flood, which removes the chemical coating of the seed that has preserved it so long. Now, as the coating dissolves the seed splits open, root and shoot are produced, and a new plant begins to grow. One desert plant produces self-planting seeds with spiral tails! The spirals are sensitive to the slightest moisture in the air. They coil and uncoil in such a way that they dig themselves into the dry sandy soil, and when rain finally comes they are self-planted and ready to take root.
It is easy to understand how seeds of various kinds are arranged by planting and cultivating them, but many are scattered far and wide by wind, water, birds, animals and insects. For instance, one Russian thistle may have 100,000 seeds on it, all of which are carried by the wind to new locations, even across mount ins and oceans! Then, too, many seeds float down rivers and across oceans to distant shores and take root there. The coconut is an example of this.
The tasty fruit of trees and bushes, hunted by birds and animals, contains its seed or pit. These creatures may carry the fruit a considerable distance before eating them and discarding the seed or pit, where it often will take root and start a new plant. What a wonderful provision of the Creator to thus use animals and birds to take part in providing a future food supply for their kind in places all over the world!
The Bible speaks of one who sowed seed in a large area — some never took root, others grew awhile and then died, but some fell on good ground and brought forth much fruit. In Matthew chapter 13 the Lord Himself explained about this, likening the seed to the Word of God sown throughout the world. Some people paid no attention to it and it did not take root with them. Others enjoyed it for a little while, but did not really accept it in their hearts, so there was no new life there either. But the happy ones were those who received and believed the Word and received a new eternal life, which is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Which one of these are you?
ML-12/09/1984