Seeds Stored for a Harvest They Would Never See

In 1941, as German forces encircled Leningrad, the scientists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry faced an unthinkable test. Inside their walls sat one of the world's largest seed banks — tens of thousands of packets of rice, wheat, corn, and potatoes, painstakingly collected from every continent. Outside, nine hundred days of siege began. Starvation crept through the city like a shadow.

One by one, researchers died at their desks, surrounded by edible seeds they refused to touch. Dmitri Ivanov starved to death guarding thousands of packets of rice. Liliya Rodina collapsed beside a collection of oats. At least nine scientists perished, each choosing to protect a future harvest over their own survival. They catalogued, preserved, and sealed those seeds in containers, trusting that spring would come again to a land buried under siege and ice.

Jeremiah understood that kind of defiant hope. With Babylonian armies battering Jerusalem's walls, the Lord told him to buy a field in Anathoth — to count out seventeen shekels of silver, sign the deed, seal it in a clay jar, and declare, "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land." It looked like madness. But faith has always looked like madness to those who cannot see past the siege.

Sometimes the most prophetic thing we can do is invest in a future only God can guarantee.