Sometimes just planting a seed is the really important part.

Sometimes just planting a seed is the really important part.

According to Jean Boles, in, eHow Contributor, points out that the Giant sequoias are the oldest, though not the tallest, living tree on earth. They are dwarfed by the redwood, but, out do them in total volume; the giant sequoias are the largest living things in the world. Sequoias reproduce from the seeds of their cones, and in order to reproduce, these seeds have three requirements: some direct sunlight; an adequate supply of moisture; and soil containing minerals, but no grass or other plants to share the available moisture. Before the seeds can have a chance at reproduction, they must be free of the tough, tight cones.

There are three methods:

The first is the Long-Horned Wood-Boring Beetle’s larvae which are laid on the cone and eats the hard outer shell thus releasing the tiny seeds when the cone dries.

The second is the Douglas Squirrel, also called a chickaree, eats the fleshy green scales on young cones cutting open the scales but does not bother with the seeds. While the chickaree prefers young cones, beetle larvae search for older cones.

The third and most prolific is the release by fire which dries the cones dropping the seeds on ground denuded of any competing vegetation allowing for the likely growth of the seedling.

Some days I feel that little insects of discouragement are eating away at my resolve only to find they are eating away the hard shell of my resistance to change or action. Other days it seems I am being nibbled to death by the little and sometimes petty things I consider non-essential for daily life only to find they were my daily life for that 24 hour period. But the days that really consume me are the days my plans get burned up in the passage of time or the tyranny of the urgent. Those days I tend to go to bed discouraged and defeated.

As you may have already discovered for yourself those tend to be followed by the most fruitful of days or even months (fires can burn as long as there is fuel). I try to remember those days past during the eating, nibbling, burning days of the present so I can prepare myself for what God planning for.

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten…You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and … then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed” (Joel 2:25-27)