Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Sowing Seeds

We are in the middle of rainy season. It is amazing to see the bright green coming up all around. It is almost like it is too bright to be the real color, as if it has been photo enhanced. What were tiny seeds only a month or so ago are now taller than my head. Where paths were so clear and wide, now the underbrush and grasses have nearly covered them over. I look across farms planted on the steep hillsides, so neatly hand plowed and birthing plenty of green lushness in tidy rows. It is a reminder of how we sow something only small with hopes that it becomes much greater. As I gazed at all the growth, I remembered something that I wrote some years ago while doing mission work in another area in Africa. I thought I would share. 


They know that the rains will come, the shoot will sprout, and they will greet yet another harvest. They sow these promises into their fields with great hope and expectation.

So we too sow our seeds. We hold them in our hands and place them in the earth of our lives, hoping that something great will come of them. We walk our paths hoping that "now" will impact "then". So, hold your marriages wisely. Plan in these years to love in such a way that leads to love overflowing after 20 more years have passed. Look at the children who God has placed in your hand. What you do with those seeds now will bless or curse generations to come. What skill do you bring, or relationship do you have, or gift do you hold that you can "sow"? Whatever path you find yourself on, whatever people who cross it before you, know that these moments are the seeds before you. If only for a moment, or if for a lifetime, consider how to plant them in the soil. 

For you see, we farm the field of Another. How weighty should it be to us to know that we plant in the fields of eternity. That the Giver of life, even our own, has trusted us to display His glory by the work of our hands. He only asks us to work the field, it is He who gives the seed and brings about the harvest. It isn't the ingenuity of the farmer that counts here. His seeds will bear just as He has desired, fruits of many diverse kinds. We labor with all our might in adoration for the One who has brought us to farm. Only He though, can bring food from the earth. 

Lord, bless these seeds, bless the harvest, that through them we may bring glory to your name. 

From Mark 4   
And He was saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows - how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."

1 comment:

  1. Thanks. This is a great reminder. As we serve as "missionaries" in Allendale, I often wonder if we are making a difference.

    Love this: "What you do with those seeds now will bless or curse generations to come."

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