Lessons From "Down The Track"
Spring is coming so I began taking our newest daughter (just turned 8) out for initiation “down the track,” as we say. For those of you outside of our household, you probably do not know what that is. “Down the track” is my nickname for our 3,000 square foot garden that is situated a little over a half mile from our house. It is within walking distance or a short bike ride from the house and is a place where my other kids, like it or not, have learned many things. In the garden, we have learned how to complete simple tasks, experienced getting our hands dirty, and learned where food comes from.
Since it is still early in the gardening season here – we normally don’t put out our tomatoes or plant cucumbers until June – we only planted potatoes and peas. As she was pushing the potatoes into the ridge that I made and sprinkling pea seeds along the woven wire fence, there was no doubt in my mind that she had absolutely no idea what a potato looks like when it starts to sprout above the ground or what a pea plant looks like when the first whirl of leaves pushes up. Neither did she know how a potato grows new tubers, how good fresh baby potatoes taste, how the pea flowers turn to pods, or even how a few fresh peas from the pod can taste better than chocolate chips. But that’s ok. She will have the pleasure of learning all those things in time. All that matters for now is that she does her job, knows that the seeds will become plants and that the plants will provide food.
The resurrection is much like that. We do not know all the details of what our resurrection body will be like. We know some basics. For instance, we know our new body will be something like Christ’s and something much better than we have now. We also know that somehow through that change, we will retain our identity. We do not have all the answers, but that’s ok. We will have the pleasure of learning so much more when we go to meet the Lord in spirit and eventually in our resurrection body. In the meantime, we must be like my daughter “down the track.” We must keep doing what our heavenly Father tells us to do, keep trusting Him for the lessons He has only begun to teach us and keep believing that the full truth will be so much better than we could ever imagine on our own.
“But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain – perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.” 1 Corinthians 15:35-38