ACHENES!

Photo by Alfred Schrock on Unsplash

Achene, not acne…the botanical word for those beautiful seeds that blow in the wind.
Who hasn’t blown away the seeds of a dandelion?  You probably never thought about it,
but you’re doing the dandelion a big favor. Of course, your parents may not appreciate having its seeds spread all over the yard.  Seeds from dandelions, milkweed, swan plants and cottonwood trees are light and have feathery bristles that can be carried long distances by the wind.              

Then there are those winged seeds of the maple tree that twirl to the ground like ballet dancers falling from the sky! Some seeds, like the coconut float on water and can be carried thousands of miles to some tropical island in the middle of the ocean! But the winner in the seed dispersal contest is the blackberry.  The birds love those blackberries.  They eat them and then deposit their seeds EVERYWHERE in their droppings.  If you don’t weed your yard in the Pacific Northwest, the blackberry bushes will grow clean over your house!!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The great thing about these bushes is they are everywhere!  And you can pick as many berries as you want when they ripen in the late summer…and the harvest is free!  Just watch out for the thorns, they are really nasty.  We used to lay a 2×12 wood plank on top of the vines which grow up to 10 to15 feet in the air and pick-away.  Delicious!

And then there are those pesky ‘hitchhiker’ seeds.  You know, those stick-tights that get stuck on your pants, pets, or socks and believe it or not, in or under your car.  According to Gardening Know How, Humans are spreading these weed seeds at a rate of 500 million to one billion seeds a year in cars alone!  Farmers are not happy.

Did you know that the word of God is also referred to as a seed?  Perhaps with a capital S.

I thought of this as I remembered the beauty of the dandelion and milkweed seeds carried by the wind.  The wind of the Holy Spirit carries the seed of the word of God through His spiritual seed dispersal system to people all over the world!  The Holy Spirit uses apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and you, if the Holy Spirit dwells within you.  Then you are like the ‘wind that blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ John 3:8. You are led by the wind of the Spirit wherever He wishes, planting the seed of the word of God.  Like the wind, you may not know where it comes from and where it is going, but you hear it’s sound and see the leaves rustle on the trees.  So it is with those born of the Spirit.  You cannot see this Holy Spirit, you may not know where it comes from or where it is going, but you see the result of this planting of the word of God in the lives of people. 

And did you know that God calls the feet of those who disperse these seeds beautiful?

‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, (who plant seeds) who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!’ Isaiah 52:7.  He calls their feet beautiful because they bring the good news that ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 

The trouble is, the human heart is the receptor of those seeds and just like the plants, ‘some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.’  (From the parable of the sower) Matthew 3:3-8.  Is your heart good soil where the word sown will grow and flourish? 

Are your feet beautiful?