What will you do in the dark? Will you sow the seeds you have?
Seeds of faith.
Seeds of obedience.
Seeds of trust.
The night is the perfect time to sow them because they can germinate without any light. In fact, seeds often grow most effectively in the dark and can even be hindered by light.
A method of growing rhubarb called “forcing” is an extreme version of this. Farmers leave the sown soil in complete darkness, which eventually forces the stalks to search upward for the light in order to grow chlorophyl. The resulting development occurs at such an accelerated pace that you actually can hear the rhubarb growing, the creaking or popping as cells divide in real time.¹ You hear it, but of course you can’t see it, because it is happening in the dark.
The most treasured “fruit” in your life will often grow in the darkest season. As you reach for the light with full focus, you’re experiencing a deep transformation. Remember that the soil of your soul is much more important than the soil of your circumstance.
As a historian and monk, Saint Bede the Venerable lived a hidden life during the Dark Ages. In his solitude he generated works that changed his culture and that people went on to study centuries after his time. In AD 731 Saint Bede completed The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which detailed the spread of Christianity and the establishment of the church. Earning the name “Father of English History,” he helped revive education during the early middle ages.²
Living largely unseen for years in an era labeled “dark,” Saint Bede’s inner life still thrived as he poured energy into producing something good.
Could it be that the constraints of his life situation became a driver for his development?
Could the constraints in your life serve as a driver for you?
Don’t let the sense of darkness limit the possibilities of your season. There is much within your reach right here, right now. What you choose to sow in the night will take root and later bring a harvest in the light of day.
But what about when we feel so broken that all we have to “sow” is tears?
Receive the reassuring words of Psalm 126: “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! [S]he who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing [her] sheaves with [her]” (vv. 5–6).
Here is a promise to hold on to in the dark! God says our tears are our seeds to sow and our season of sorrow will not last forever. The psalmist described eruptive joy and bountiful sheaves—bundles of harvested grain stalks, the result of much effort and patience.
What is the emotion we reap? Joy.
Hannah sowed tears of trust and honesty. David sowed tears of repentance as he wept for the sins he had committed against God. The woman with the alabaster box sowed tears of adoration and worship.
The common reality among them? They all eventually reaped their harvest with a heart of joy. “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
One morning in 2016, I called my grandmother to catch up. She had lost the love of her life, my grandfather, a few years earlier and it had been a devastating season. Sixty-three years of marriage to a delightful, strong, and faithful man and then several years of being fully on her own.
That day, however, Grammy sounded better than ever; I could sense the joy in her voice over the phone. For several months she had been spending the early hours of every day in prayer with Jesus and had recently found herself telling him, “Lord, I’m happy. I never expected to be happy. I expected only to get by after Rodney’s death, but I’m doing better than that. I am truly happy.”
I cried as I listened to her say this. She had married Papa when she was only sixteen; life with him was all she’d known for decades. And yet God had given her a new breath of life for a new season. At almost ninety years old, Grammy knew she was not alone. Her Father God had faithfully stayed close to her. She knew the deep joy of his nearness. She was still his little girl, and he was still her wonderful Father, forever comforting, loving, and leading.
Grammy had sown her tears and entrusted them to God long enough to reap them with shouts of joy. The season that had seemed to offer only the chance to endure surprisingly brought the miracle of new mercies.
I know there were days she didn’t feel like sowing—to come to God with her heartache and struggle, with her trust and obedience. It would have been easier to hold on to her seeds and wait to have faith until the sun was shining and she could see everything clearly. But she didn’t do that. Why? Because she knew that it is only by sowing that the state of our hearts can begin to change.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them.”³
As we come to him with our open hearts and full trust, he will do what only he can.
¹ Vaishali Singh, “Discover the Art of Forcing Rhubarb,” Small Farm Canada, accessed November 10, 2024, https://www. smallfarmcanada.ca/gardens-crops/discover-the-art-of-forcing- rhubarb/; Eric Grundhauser, “Listen to the Sick Beats of Rhubarb Growing in the Dark,” Atlas Obscura, April 10, 2018, https://www. atlasobscura.com/articles/forced-rhubarb-makes-sound.
² The History of the English Church and People. (2005). United States: Barnes & Noble Books, page xxvII
³ C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (HarperOne, 2017), 58.
This is an excerpt from DawnCheré Wilkerson’s book, Slow Burn. Click here to grab a copy of Slow Burn.
Scripture References
