The slogan seems true, doesn’t it? It’s very easy—usual, I’d say—to get caught up in the day-in-day-out mundaneness of work, kids, laundry, what to eat, walk the dog, with a flat tire thrown into the whole shebang. Just keeping our noses above water takes supreme effort, but at the end of the day we feel depleted and unaccomplished. Why is that?

We let life happen. We enter the day without much regard to the sovereignty of God over that day. A quick reading of scripture and a request for God’s blessing (please make the day go smoothly!) and we’re off and running. The proverbial tyranny of the urgent leads us on, and doggone it, in the midst of it we want to be successful and able to feel good about ourselves at the end of the day.

The secret of a disciple’s life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that “falls into the ground and dies”–it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).

Oswald Chambers stops us in our tracks. Devotion to Jesus Christ doesn’t just happen. Contentment with insignificance and meekness definitely won’t just happen; we’re all about significance and pride and control. Not so much like a grain of wheat, are we? I’d rather have the fruit-bearing without the dying.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him (John 12:24-26).

Jesus spoke those words as he walked the path of obedience toward the cross. The grain of wheat yields itself to the purpose of God, and in doing so, is fruitful. Jesus yielded himself–deliberately–to the will of his Father, and through his dying bore fruit beyond comprehension. If we are to serve him, we must follow him. (Those are his words). No more willy-nilly-life-happens, but a deliberate yielding to the purpose of God, minutely conscious of his control over the daily husk-breaking of our selves.

Little grains of wheat, entrusting ourselves to the One who takes our life, gives us life, and causes us to be fruitful for his kingdom and glory. The landscape around us ought to start changing any day now.