“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.” John 12:24 NASB

Unless we let go of our need for something to identify us, garner us attention, give us value, it will not bear the fruit we seek for it to bear. This is why at times we find ourselves in assigned “death seasons.” Death of a dream, death of a passion, death of old ways, death of a job, even a relationship.

Think about this: the very man who personifies the ultimate example of what it looks like to bear the image of God had to die in order for new life and new growth to come. In order to produce lasting fruit. Fruit will never grow by grasping onto something with an unyielding posture. How can movement happen if we’re hanging on? How will we journey anywhere if our hold is keeping us in one spot? Jesus had to let go, to release his natural need for survival so that anyone else who also chose to let go of this world’s control over their hearts and destinies would know freedom and love for eternity.

If Jesus had remained alive and never made the choice to give up his rights to live, his influence would never have grown as strong as it has or have reached as many people as it has. But see, neither did his death last forever. It was a necessary, yet temporary position that he had to embrace. I believe that when we are willing to give up something that we are afraid to give up, something that means a lot to us, that thing will only be stronger when it is resurrected. I think so many of us live with this misconception that once we’ve given up a dream, a person, or whatever it may be, it’s a permanent status. That we’ll never get it back. It’s done, over, a thing of the past. But maybe, really, we needed to enter into that death season in order to see fruit in the resurrection that we never would have seen without the death.

Perhaps some things are not meant to be brought back to life, but there are some things that are! And we’ve believed that we’ve lost them forever just because we made the difficult choice to release them in the past. But, see, the purpose of letting go of the past is to see greater things in the future!

Dreams and passions will be returned to us—they will merely look different now. Relationships will be restored—they will just look different. They will be stronger. They will now have the ability to produce lasting and beneficial fruit because, through their temporary death, we’ve released our need for them to identify us and give us worth. We can step into something we once held onto, but this time we’ll experience freedom of movement because we’re no longer grasping.

Death loosens our stiff backs so that we can move into new life. Movement releases hope and faith. It may be time for you to move again. It may be time to pick up that dormant dream, that thing you know you had to give up because the act of letting go scared you. The fact that you did let go or put it aside should tell you that you’re free. It no longer has a hold on you, so you can now have a hold on it. Pick up that dream. Dance again with the freedom of movement, and you will see fruit you’ve never seen in your past.

Death is never permanent. So don’t unnecessarily keep that thing in the grave.