What is a seed?
A seed is a stored program. A program is a set of instructions for doing something. A seed stores a set of instructions for making a plant of some sort. An acorn contains a set of instructions for making an oak, a hazelnut for making a hazel tree, etc. So God’s idea was to enable plants to reproduce themselves by storing the instructions for making a new one in a secure capsule called a seed.
The seed is perfectly designed to keep the information safe. Keeping information safe in the event of an apocalypse is one of the things that mankind is concerned about. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is part of a global effort to preserve information and secure food supplies in the event of a nuclear winter or something equally as catastrophic. We can argue about how pointless that might be another time.
Seeds can last for millennia without decay and still work when planted in the right conditions. They contain humidity, gravity and light sensors which constantly monitor external conditions. When the right conditions occur the stored program is started and a plant begins to be born out of the death of the seed itself.
One of the reasons I think that God created seeds and plants first before He even made the Sun, Moon and stars is because a seed is such a fundamental idea:
- We speak of something being seminal in the sense that it is the seed of an idea that gives birth to a whole series of consequences. God’s idea of making seeds is, of course, the most fundamental of those ideas.
- Jesus describes seeds as like the words of God. If seeds fall into the right type of soil then they produce multiplicative fruit, seeds upon seeds. Similarly if God’s word falls on the right type of soil in our hearts it also will produce fruit. (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8 -see also my previous blog on this subject).
- The idea of a stored program is fundamental to all creation. It is only in the last few decades that we have discovered just how fundamental it is. Every person has a unique identity contained in our genes, stored in the DNA in every cell of our body more efficiently than any storage method man has yet devised. If you were to take any cell in your body and put it under a microscope it could be identified as yours. The same applies to every single person in the world (except identical twins – but even they are unique because of other genetic factors).
Unfortunately I haven’t studied enough genetics to really explore this fascinating aspect of creation in more depth. But there is more than enough in what I do know to cause me to gasp in wonder at God’s creativity.
Surely with such creativity in our Maker it is surprising we are not far more creative ourselves? I believe that creativity is released in us as we connect more closely with the creator, think His thoughts after Him and seek to implement them into the fabric of our everyday lives.
Can I encourage you to go and seek the creative Face of God?
He has – perhaps surprising and unexpected – creative answers to your daily dilemmas.
