Sowing and reaping

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Hosea 6-10; Psalm 123


TO CHEW ON: "Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
for it is time to seek the Lord
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you." - Hosea 10:12


Hosea is full of the imagery of farming and nature. Here are some images from Hosea 10.

Hosea 10:1 talks about how Israel has enjoyed good harvests of the vine. But they have spent it on themselves and on improving idol altars and poles.

Hosea 10:4 talks about their system of justice. It's faulty and as a result "...judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field." I see weeds sprouting in newly plowed fields. But these aren't just any weeds. These are hemlock — a deadly poison that destroys the land's fruitfulness.

Hosea 10:7-8 talks about how Samaria will become desolate. Her king will be "cut off like a twig on the water" (a severed tree branch floating downriver?). Her idol altars for worshiping idols at Aven will no longer be used but will become the home of thorns and thistles. ("Aven" is short for Beth Aven a play on the name Bethel. Beth Aven means "House of Iniquity." Bethel which means "House of God.")

Hosea 10:10-11 tells us that as a result of their sins, the Israelites will be punished by other nations ("Peoples shall be gathered against them / When I bind them for their two transgressions"). Instead of enjoying the fruit of their work in an independent way ("Ephraim is a trained heifer / that loves to thresh grain"), they will now be forced to do menial work. "Ephraim will pull a plow...Jacob shall break his clods."

In the middle of these gloomy predictions God begs them to again take up farming His way:

"Sow for yourselves righteousness;

Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground
For it is time to seek the Lord,"
It would result in His blessing of rain:

"Till He comes and rains
righteousness on you" - Hosea 10:12.

Instead of complying this is what they have done: "...plowed wickedness...reaped iniquity...eaten the fruit of lies / Because you trusted in your own way..." Hosea 10:13.

It all comes back to the old truism, for us as it did for them:

We reap what we sow.

This is true in nature and it's true spiritually. Let's ask ourselves:

• What are we sowing personally — watching, reading, listening to, thinking and meditating about?

• What are we sowing in our families — modeling for our kids and grand-kids, saying with our words and attitudes, spending our money on?

• What are we sowing in our communities, our churches, cities, the nation? How do we care for the poor? Is our justice system really just? I think about how much our governments depend on income streams from questionable sources like gambling. This can't be a good thing, can it?

PRAYER: Dear God, it's easy to shrug off warnings like we have in Hosea as applicable to people in a different time and place. Help me to take these personally and do what I can about sowing good things in my life, my family's life, my community. Help me to remember to pray for my country and other big areas where I feel like I have little influence. Amen.

PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 123

MORE: "Someday we will be amazed"

"We never know what God might be growing in the fields of obscurity we are tending. What might God do through the child whose diaper you’re changing, or the grandchild of the boy in your Sunday school class, or the bored teen in your small church, or the coworker who currently mocks your faith in Jesus, or the hardened inmate who looks impossible to reach? We can be confident of this: he is doing more than we can see. He always is. Someday we will be amazed." - Excerpt from a Bethlehem Baptist Church Newsletter "You Never Know What God is Growing"  by Jon Bloom, December 2007. Read entire...   © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org 

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Sowing and reaping

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Galatians 6:1-18

TO CHEW ON: "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." Galatians 6:7-8

If you have ever planted a garden, you will be familiar with the principles of sowing and reaping—principles which, throughout the Bible, also illustrate truisms about living life wisely and well. What are these principles? I can think of three (there may be more):

1. The crop we harvest will have the same nature as the seed we plant. If we plant peas, we will harvest peas, not artichokes or carrots.

Relating this principle to how we live our lives, the writer of Hosea talks of a righteous life reaping God's rain of righteousness (Hosea 10:12). When we live (sow) in a way that panders to our fleshly appetites, we reap corruption, says Paul in our focus verse today. But when we live (sow) life under the direction of the Holy Spirit, we will harvest everlasting life (Galatians 6:8).

2. There is an interlude of time between planting and harvesting. Each seed we plant has its own germination and growth-to-maturity timetable.

In life, though the eventual harvest may take a long time (Ecclesiastes 11:1) and be preceded by multiple plantings, and accompanied by anguish (Psalm 126:6), harvest day will eventually come. Paul encourages the Galatians: "Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" - Galatians 6:9.

A sidebar article in my Bible explains it well:

"God has a timetable for every seed we plant. His timetable is not always our timetable. Sometimes the 'due season' means a quick return. Sometimes it means a slow return that may take years -- even a lifetime" ("God has a Due Season for All the Seeds You Plant" by Oral Roberts from New Spirit Filled Life Bible p. 1639).

3. We will harvest more than we plant. Think of the multiplication we get from one pea, bean or corn seed!

Similarly in life, our actions have the potential to yield many-fold. Jesus' parable about the sower talks about an increase of thirty, sixty and a hundred-fold (Mark 4:8). Tithes brought into the storehouse are the seed for such blessing "there will not be room enough to receive it" - Malachi 3:10.

What and where are we planting today? No doubt some of our efforts are given to planting seeds of kindness, truth, encouragement, faith, hope and love in the lives of children, grandchildren, parents, friends, colleagues. If nothing seems to be coming of our efforts, let's not give up. Remember, a harvest takes time to grow and mature. Just make sure our "granaries" are big enough to hold the multiplication our sowing will eventually yield!

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for these principles of sowing and reaping from nature. Help me to gain patience and encouragement from them, especially as I look at the places I've sown seed but still see no results. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Two harvest laws

TODAY'S SPECIAL: 2 Corinthians 9:1-15


TO CHEW ON: "But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." 2 Corinthians 9:6

Two laws of the harvest come to mind as I ponder today's reading.

1. The first is the law of sowing and reaping. It is true in many areas.

Nature. Why are there always so many dandelions in the spring? Because dandelions sow bountifully. Each hoary head contains up to 400 (though the average is 180) little parachutes. When all the dandelions growing everywhere from fields to stingy cracks in the sidewalk release their quota, it's no wonder we are awash in yellow every May.


Work. The result of our work will be commensurate with our effort. If I send off many pieces of writing, the chances that I'll publish one or two are far better than if I just send off one or two.

Family and Friendship. We invest great amounts of love and training into our children in the hopes that we'll someday reap a mature, productive adult. When we are generous with love, caring, and helpfulness we will have far more friends than if we are self-centered.

Spiritually. If we are silent about our faith, we will harvest few disciples—though Jesus did talk about harvesting what we didn't sow (John 4:34-38).

2. Which brings us to a second harvest law. I'll call it the law of seasons. 

Sowing and reaping don't occur on successive days. There's a whole season between when you sow and when you reap. For dandelions it's a matter of weeks. For apple trees it's years. For the Monterey and Pond pines, it's the right conditions because the cones need the heat of a fire to burst them open and seed more trees.

There's a lesson for us in this too. We need faith and patience—faith that something is actually happening in all the places we've scattered the seed, and patience to keep tending our bountifully sown fields of work, family, friendship, and Christian service.

Wherever you and I are today, let's continue with lavish sowing, knowing that the time of harvest will come.


PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for the principles of nature that help me understand spiritual life. Help me to be more lavish in spreading seed in every department of my life. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.