There’s something uncomfortable about planting a seed. You take something you possess, something with value and potential, and put it somewhere you can no longer see it. Then you cover it with dirt. If you didn’t understand how seeds work, planting would look a lot like losing.

That’s the picture Jesus chose when He talked about what was about to happen to Him.

Palm Sunday looked like victory. Crowds were cheering. Palm branches were waving. People were shouting, “Hosanna!” They wanted Jesus to save them now . Remove the Roman oppression, and change their circumstances.

But while the crowd was celebrating what they thought Jesus was going to do, Jesus was surrendering to what He actually came to do. He said, “Unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone.” Jesus knew the cross would look like loss. But He also knew something the crowd couldn’t see. There was a harvest inside the seed. And then Jesus turns the principle toward us.

Sometimes the things we try hardest to hold onto are the very things God asks us to plant. Control, pride, fear, hurt, disappointment. Maybe it’s the need to be right, or feel understood. We hold tightly to these because surrender feels like losing. But a seed held tightly in your hand can never become what it was created to become. Some things can only multiply after we release them.

Maybe you’ve been asking God to change something around you, while God has been asking you to surrender something within you. We often want Jesus to remove the pressure without touching our pride. Remove the pain without requiring surrender. Bless our plans without interrupting them. But Jesus came to do something deeper than improve our circumstances. He came to make us alive. So perhaps the question today isn’t simply, “God, what are You going to do for me?” Maybe it’s: “God, what am I still holding that You’re asking me to plant?”