Wednesday, February 06, 2008

sowing & reaping

So often we forget the “Principle of Sowing and Reaping”.

Sometimes we give up on the possibility that God is going to do something great, simply becuase he hasn't done it YET.

But the priciple we need to remember is this: You seldom reap the harvest in the same season that you sowed the seeds.

When you plant a seed in your garden today, you don’t sit in the garden and watch the ground expecting for the fruit to pop up right away. You know it takes time. The harvest might not come tomorrow, or next week, or even next year.

In fact the Bible says the harvest might not even come up until you get to heaven. You may not see the reward for your labor in this lifetime, on this earth.

But God has promised that when you plant
 seeds of righteousness
 seeds of integrity
 seeds of peace
You have the hope…you have the promise, that you will be rewarded with a harvest of righteousness.

Maybe the change that you need to make is in a relationship (somebody you just can’t get along with). And so you decide to do something positive. You start planting the seeds. You start being nice to the person. You start loving them and making peace and trying to restore that relationship.

Well, you’ve got to understand that you might not reap the rewards right away. They might not change and everything turn out great. They might not apologize and make pretty.

So what is our natural tendency? We pull back and say, “Well fine then, I’ll stop planting the seeds. I’ll go back to treating them the old way.” And we never reap the harvest in that relationship.

But DON’T STOP. Keep on loving that person. And even if they don’t change, God says…IN THE END you will reap a harvest of righteousness anyway. You’ll be rewarded.