Take a Stand - Planting and Harvesting
It's harvest time around here. The wheat has sprouted and is ready (or past ready) to be cut. Looking out over the fields on my way to work reminds of how I grew up, but it also forces me to think about my own spiritual journey.
I grew up on a wheat and cattle farm in south central Kansas. While many people I know currently would think it a terrible way to grow up, I loved it. I loved being out in the country, away from everyone and everything. I still get goosebumps when I smell freshly worked farmland. There was a simplicity about life out on the farm. During the summer, you get up, you work, you eat lunch, you work some more, then you come in late in the evening and do something else. My brother and I would play Nintendo or computer games, read or play board games and cards with our parents. It was an ideal lifestyle for bringing a family together. Fall brought planting season and school, meaning football games on Friday nights, and (reluctantly) up on Saturday to drive a tractor. Many days were spent listening to college football on the AM-only radio that was in the tractor I usually drove. Reflecting back on this part of my life, a few things open up to me.
It's easy to see the results of planting wheat. You have the amber waves of grain waving in the wind. You see the combines out in the field taking in the harvest. What happened to get it to that point though?
When my dad plants wheat, he doesn't plant it then go out everyday and badger it to come up. He may go back later and put some kind of pesticide or insecticide on it to protect the seedlings, but he doesn't keep hammering on the seed until it sprouts. He waits patiently for it to be ready to harvest, then he has someone come in to harvest it.
It's in much the same way that we need to treat others. We are responsible for planting the seed in someone's life. We can't force them to come to Jesus though. We can't heckle someone into accepting Christ, just like Dad can't harvest wheat that isn't ready yet. After we plant the seed, the Holy Spirit is the only thing that can prompt someone to take that next step. In Mark 4:26-29, Jesus states,
He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
The mystery of how the seed grows and how the soil produces grain are taken care of by God. Nothing we can do will speed the process along.
We then have to be available to take in the harvest. Matthew 9:37-38 says,
Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Are you available to do that? Have you said to God, "Here I am, send me"? It's a difficult thing to do. We aren't called to be amazing speakers or writers, just faithful ones. What are you doing to be available to God?