Seeds - dying to live

John 12:24 says: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit."

My dad planted a garden every year in his back yard. His house sat on an acre, so he was able to have a pretty big garden.  When he planted his corn, he always put four seeds in each hole. One day while helping him, I asked why.  It was a lesson he'd learned from his dad, and he explained it to me with the same poem his dad had used to explain it to him:

"One for the worm, and one for the crow;
One to rot, and one to grow."

Now, look back at John 12:24 and think about those four seeds.  Which of the four was the one that died to bring forth much fruit?  Obviously the ones for the worm and the crow are out of the picture.  Although we might tend to think of rotting as resulting from death, that seed is obviously not the one that grows.  That only leaves one.  So how does it grow if it dies?  And if it dies, why doesn't it rot instead of grow?

Look ahead a few months to when you have a garden full of corn stalks with ears of corn and ready to harvest.  If you pull that corn stalk out of the ground, where is the seed you started from?  You're holding it in your hand, aren't you?  Ears of corn will not grow on the corn kernel itself.  It must cease to be a seed and become a stalk.  It must "die" to being a seed in order to become the corn stalk on which more ears can be produced.

Scripture challenges us to do the same.  As we die to self, we can learn to live in Christ.  As we count all things loss, we experience the crucified life, and find the power of the resurrection on the life side of the cross.  As we experience difficult and painful experiences in our lives, we often think we are going through "Hell on earth."  We compare our hurt to the pain of dying.  We may even think in terms of "bearing our cross."  In reality though, our "cross" is His cross.  The painful experiences are just that - painful experiences.  They only relate to the cross of Jesus to the extent that they point out the areas of our lives where we are operating in our own strength rather than depending on Him.  When we realize that, we'll find that God's word really does contain relevant answers to life's hurts; and even those difficult times can serve to lead us to a victorious, fruitful, abundant life in Christ.  And it begins with the lesson of the seed.

I'll develop this idea more in the next couple of blogs - based on chapter 3 of my book. 
I'm kind of new to blogging, but I know if I go to someone's blog and the posts are really long, I'm less inclined to read it all.  I'd appreciate any feedback on that.  If you would rather have more in each post and not split it up so much, or I'm doing okay, or if I need to make them even shorter - let me know.  I'm not such an artsy person that my feelings would be hurt - I just want to share what's on my heart in a way that others might actually take the time to read it and be blessed, or challenged and would feel free to engage in discussion if they agree or disagree.