Spiritual Serotiny

 

Seems like a strange title, does it not?  Hopefully, I will be able to explain what I mean by that title.  Wildfires are devastating the western US once again.  As of this writing, August 24, 2020, there are close to 1 million acres burning in California and nearly 200,000 acres currently burning in Colorado.   We have endured the smoke from these fires for two weeks now.  Even though they have produced some striking sunrises and sunsets, the fact is hundreds of thousands of acres are burning.  It is terrible indeed.

 

But it’s not all bad.  Foresters tell us that fire cleanses the forest and diversifies the habitat.  That is great for wildlife but heartbreaking for a landowner who had lost everything or for the old-growth redwoods in California that have been in existence for over 1000 years.  Also, fire releases nutrients into the soil to help with germination and growth of a new forest.  Interestingly, though, serotiny happens as well.  Trees with serotinous cones, like our own lodgepole pine, hold the seeds tightly in the cone with a resin until temperatures reach 122-150 degrees Fahrenheit.  At that temperature, the resin melts and the seeds are released. Typically, this happens during a wildfire.  If you go to where lodgepole pine exists after a recent wildfire, you will see thousands of seedlings growing.  Fire was instrumental in releasing the seeds so they could germinate and regenerate a new forest.  I believe serotiny is God’s plan to regenerate the forest after a catastrophic wildfire. 

 

Serotiny, therefore, serves as a metaphor for our spiritual lives.  Often when we experience the heartbreak of life, we wonder, “Why did this happen to me?”  We cannot explain it and question what God is doing in our lives.  We feel like Job in the Bible who lost his sons and livelihood and his health in a short period of time.  He did not know he was part of a spiritual gambit between God and Satan.  Job responded to his wife’s criticism in Job 2:10, “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?”  When we think of the wildfires, I believe we need to think of them in this way.  God has a plan that we may not be able to see.  Likewise, it is the same for us when we experience the wildfire of heartbreak.  God is up to something even though we may not see it. 

 

Perhaps he is allowing you to have a serotinous experience. He wants to release in you something good that you may have never considered.  This good is released whenever we go through the fires of pain and tragedy.  Be like Job looking to God and accept the trouble as well as the good knowing God has a purpose in it.   

 

I believe it is the same for our culture.  God is allowing actual wildfires to devastate our land as well as the figurative wildfires of destructive protests in many of our cities and civil unrest across our land.  The contentious political process has only added fuel to these fires.  God is up to something.  He has a plan. 

 

I believe his plan is for us to return to him.  The word return is used over 1000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament.  In the book of Amos, five times in chapter 4, he told the Hebrews they had not returned to God after experiencing empty stomachs (verse 6), a lack of rain causing crop failure (verse 8), mildew and locusts (verse 9), plagues and the destruction from war (verse 10) and being overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah (verse 11).  What a bleak picture and yet God promised to restore the Hebrews to their land in Amos 9:15, “I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God. Scholars debate whether or not this has already taken place.  The truth here is God will bless those who exercise faith and return to him. 

 

For our country, therefore, after experiencing devastating wildfires, Covid-19, civil unrest, and destruction of our cities, will we return to him?  Will these “wildfires” result in our national repentance?  The same holds for us personally.  Will the wildfires God allows result in personal repentance from sin as we return to him and his ways?  God wants all of us to experience spiritual serotiny.  He provided the way for that in his son Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for sin on the cross so that you and I could have a relationship with God as we return to him through repentance.  My friend have you done that?  Have you done that in your season of pain? Have you done that in your season of delight?  My prayer for myself, our community, our country and our world is to return to God in repentance and open our hearts to the good he wants to release in us.

 

On Saturday, September 26, 2020 from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm at several churches including my church, Church on the Hill, there will be a simulcast event called “The Return” calling us to national and individual repentance as we return to God.  Place it on your calendars and look for more information in the coming weeks.  May the blessing of spiritual serotiny be yours in abundance.