Vulnerable Growth

It’s amazing the truth that can be pulled from a child’s simple bean dissection.

As we pull off the bean’s seed coat, softened by water, I can’t help but to see past it to humanity.

“Water wakes up the seed,” we learn. But the seed can only awaken if its skin is first softened. And as with the seed, so with ourselves.

There is no waking to true life without first allowing our hard, protective coats to seep in the water Jesus offers, water that doesn’t just quench our spiritual thirst but softens and, eventually, disintegrates what we once thought kept us safe.

Once the bean’s skin is softened, only then, can the tiny sprout force its way out, piercing the skin and escaping towards the sun. Only then can the seed produce something that nourishes, grows.

Without the softening, the bean is self contained. It can be eaten, but then its use is completed. And truthfully, what use to our hunger is a single bean? It creates nothing we can use later, and it is an insignificant meal. Without the softening and subsequent growth, there is no way to feed another. A single bean isn’t even a mouthful.

But the softening is scary. It makes us vulnerable. When we soften, like the bean, instead of resisting the pressures of life, they can crush us.

But if the bean softens, then, as the sprout stretches upward, it feeds itself from what formerly protected it. The seed coat that was once its armor becomes, instead, its own personal pantry, its placenta that provides the nutrients it needs. Like the butterfly’s cocoon, it has a purpose.

If we were to pluck it off the bean (mistakenly thinking that the young sprout could grow more easily without all that dead weight), the sprout would wither. If we were to remove the butterfly’s cocoon (in an effort to save the newly winged caterpillar from its exertions), the butterfly’s wings would never develop.

“Don’t force the seed coat,” we are told. “There are no shortcuts.”

I want the shortcut, though. When I realize what could happen if I discard that old protective covering, when I realize the miracle my life could be, I want to rip it away and grow now.

But that’s not the way. The way is slow.

It is a slow softening. It is a slow stretching. It is a slow growth. It is a slow faithfulness to trust God’s timing and focus only on uncurling the next tendril in obedience, even when it makes us vulnerable, even when it is a risk. Only then are we capable of nourishing others, only when we have learned to let go of what we think protects us and allow it to release. In time.

We don’t want to learn lessons from a bean. We want to be more than that. But the same One who made us, also made the bean. The same hand is at work.

So if we can slow down, we can ask ourselves important questions:

What do I need to grow? The bean needs sun and water and dirt, but what do I need?

In what areas do I need softening so I can wake up and stretch out?

Where have my attempts to protect myself left me incapable of growth?

And we can remind ourselves of important truths:

Growth is slow. Have patience.

There are no shortcuts.

If we don’t allow ourselves to be softened, there is no way we can nourish another. There is no way we can develop into what we were intended to be.

Sometimes, the way we look at things can seem small and insignificant—it’s a single, soggy pinto bean when what we want is a five course meal—but if that tiny bean can transform the way we look at ourselves, isn’t it worth the slowing down? Isn’t it worth the humbling? Isn’t it worth the patience?