Unless a seed dies it does not sprout.
When an adult first tells an idea to a child, the child seems to ignore it or even reject it. Actually, God—the Great Gardener—simply let the idea die so that it could grow. Before long, that child will be applying that idea, succeeding with it, and teaching it to others. When a child says, “No way!” he’s almost sure to get it.
You know this because you are that child.
You remember such times of loss and frustration. We wish we would have or could have—those are the times when God summoned our hearts to awaken. We spend the rest of our lives knowing what didn’t happen. Sometimes, we give up and try to prevent anyone else from doing what we didn’t do, just so we don’t feel like we missed out. Other times, we run through life beating our heads like inmates at the asylum, chanting that we “never – ever – let – that – happen – again”. This routine process of “wishing it were different” is more easily understood through the truth of dead seeds: All seeds are dead, which means they had to die.
Look at what God does in the Bible. Satan and his foolish comrades made a mess. God flooded Earth to restore it, now things are much better. Job lost everything, but God gave it all back twofold. Jews were enslaved in Egypt, then God led them to freedom and arguably the most fertile, accessible land on Earth. Ruth lost her husband and her mother-in-law also became a widow; God gave them a new family. Her great grandson, David, spent a decade hiding in caves from Saul, then God made him king. Israel sinned and was taken to Babylon, but God brought them back and rebuilt their Temple, then their walls in only fifty-two days. Jesus was crucified, but came back to life. Christianity was persecuted in its early days, but eventually celebrated. God restores lost crops.
But, if we consider how a seed must die, arguably, God set out to give us more starting from the very moment that everything was taken away. God has been restoring from before the beginning.
Job 8:6; 42:10, Joel 2:25, John 12:24