The Christian band Wolves at the Gate has a lyric that is a weighty theological reality and prompts much thought:

A bloody tree and empty tomb sends root below for life to bloom.

These words immediately came to mind when I read Stott James new children book, The Sower. This short book uses creative narrative to draw in young readers, making them aware of God’s redemptive purposes. The book begins in eternity past:

Once there was a Voice in the darkness, full of life and life, it was the Voice of the Sower. With a word he sowed seeds, and a garden grew.

The author reveals the creating and sustaining power of the Sower and shows how sin separated the first parents and all of humanity from him. People stopped listening to the Sower and their hearts turned away from him.

Young readers will discover how the Sower pursued his sinful creatures and how he revealed himself in God’s Word and also in human flesh:

To mend broken people, to make them whole again, he took their brokenness and made it his own. He laid himself down, buried like a seed in the ground.

In the end, The Sower paints a beautiful picture about how the Lord Jesus redeems a people for his own possession. The Sower is a tool that parents can use to introduce the Christian worldview to children. But more important, he rivets their attention on Jesus - the Sower, the One who came to set his people free.

Scott James teams up with Stephen Crotts who provides incredible art to accompany this powerful little book.