Sometimes Life Looks Like Death

When I first moved to Zambia I had no clue about plant life. Like, none. I had previously killed a rubber tree when my husband and I were first married, and they are known to be tough. It might've even been a fake one, I'm not sure.

Not that I've grown much in my knowledge of plants and how to keep them alive, but I have realised a few things. Specifically what new growth looks like.

I had never had mango trees or rose bushes in my yard anywhere I had lived before. So when I saw these brownish shoots on the plants, I thought they were dying. I wondered what had happened to make them sick and cause this problem.

Well, I was quickly taught by a friend (okay it was one of my kids) that those brownish bits were signs of growth, not death. There was nothing wrong with the plant. Those brown shoots would turn light green, and then eventually darken like the rest of the plant. I was so relieved!

I think a similar thing can apply to me spiritually. When new growth happens in my life, sometimes it looks like death. Death to my past, death to my will, death to my old ways of thinking, death to who I used to be, death to relationships that are harmful to me. And it's a continual process. I am always being molded and changed by the Holy Spirit in me, and encouraged to new growth and life.

It takes time. Just like that tree doesn't shoot up fully grown out of the ground, so my spiritual growth takes time. Salvation happens in an instant, but maturity in Christ is a process.

Something that looks like death, and maybe feels like death in the moment, is really life! It makes me stronger and able to produce more fruit. Growing pains are just that- painful. But it is so worth it to become who God is calling me to be.

Romans 6:4-7
(4)Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
(5) For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
(6) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
(7) For he that is dead is freed from sin.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.