He gave them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds come and nest in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31, 32)
It began when I was a boy and realized I had sinned. I needed the forgiveness offered through Jesus. I was baptized at eleven, and the seed of eternity was planted in my heart.
As the years passed, I came to know God’s Son as more than my savior.
Now, Jesus is the mortar that holds every brick of my life together. He is the remedy for my raging dysfunction and the doctor who sets my dislocated life back in place. He is far more than the sum of everything in the universe.
The Spirit of Jesus is the music that transforms my spastic twitching into dance. He rains on my Martian landscape, changing it into a teeming Serengeti. When health fails or friends abandon, Jesus is the sunshine that fills the icy crevasse. He is my freedom, my peace, and my only hope.
Imagine the vacuum of outer space. You try to draw a panicked breath, but there’s no air to inhale. There is nothing but reflexive gulps at emptiness. That’s what it’s like to live without Jesus.
If Jesus is removed from the equation, life ceases to exist—it becomes merely a shell, like a clam without its creature or a cocoon vacant of its butterfly. There is no life, only a void of darkness with fading memories of the concept of light.
Though my faith in Jesus began as a tiny seed, it has grown into an unmovable tree of many years. Still, my branches strain toward him. They cannot turn away until I have joined with my everything.
Prayer: Jesus, I want you more than life.