14/01/2015
On May 22, 2010 I posted a blog
announcing that I had decided to get back
into shape. I was about 50 pounds
overweight at the time. Initially, my method
of choice was a popular 90-day workout and
diet plan. One unique feature of this
program is that all the workouts were on
video and you could follow along with a
virtual room full of muscle bound athletes
that seem to chuckle at you
condescendingly as you struggle with your
first chin up.
A couple of days after I started, my 6-year-
old son and 4-year-old daughter, joined by
their mother, decided that they wanted to
exercise with me and so the four of us
together were warming up for a invigorating
plyometric workout. We were only about 5
minutes into the video – still somewhere in
the stretches – when my son turned to me
with great excitement and said, “Hey dad
look…you almost got muscles…look at your
elbows!”.
My wife and I had a real good laugh. I
didn’t have the heart to tell him that it
doesn’t work that way. Getting out of
shape didn’t happen overnight – It took a
long time, lots of doughnuts, excessive
periods of sedentary inactivity and lack of
resolve to become as out of shape as I
was. And getting fit, losing weight and
building muscle wouldn’t happen overnight
either…much less after a few minutes of
warming up.
Imagine what it must have been like to
grow up on an ancient Israeli farm. The
long winter months have reduced the once
plenteous pantries to empty shells and the
family is now living on meager rations and
dreaming about a loaf of bread, fresh from
the oven. Suddenly the rain begins to pour
and the once dusty fields are becoming
rivers. The father says to his young son,
“come, it’s time to sow”. Together they walk
out to the barn where the father climbs into
the loft and pulls down huge bags of grain.
“Father” the young boy exclaims, “Now we
can make bread!” “No my son…this grain is
not for eating. Come I will show you what it
is for.” He fills a sack with grain and they
wade into the flooded fields. Then the
father does the most incredible thing. He
reaches into the sack, pulls out a handful of
grain and throws it into the water! That
night at the dinner table, the little boy eats
his paltry portion and wonders why his
father wasted so much grain. Many weeks
will go by before he understands, but one
day the water will rescind and the little boy
will step outside and behold a miracle. The
fields will be full of tiny sprouts, racing
heavenward to produce a harvest of golden
grain.
It was this ancient farming technique that
Solomon was referring to when he wrote,
“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you
will find it after many days.” (Eccl. 11:1)
Throwing perfectly good grain into the water
is a difficult thing to do, but what is more
difficult is waiting MANY DAYS for the
harvest. This is why Paul encourages us by
saying, “let us not be weary in well doing:
for in DUE SEASON we shall reap, if we faint
not.”
The laws of sowing and reaping are
universal wether learned by a little boy on
an ancient Israeli farm or a little boy in the
gym with his dad. Unfortunately…these are
principles that many adults still do not
understand.
When I was a pastor a newly saved church
member approached me after the service
one Sunday morning. He was obviously
disgruntled and wanted a word with me.
“Pastor”, he said, “The Bible says to ‘test
God’ with the tithe and offering and that’s
exactly what I did.” He went on to explain
that before he became a Christian and
started attending the church his family had
been going through a season of great
financial hardship. Now that he was
learning about the Bible he read Malachi’s
guarantee that the “windows of Heaven”
would be opened over those who give.
The past Sunday he decided to “test God”.
He emptied out his wallet in the offering
plate and gave for the first time. But the
subsequent week was not as he had
anticipated. His financial difficulties
continued and he was concerned that there
was something wrong with the Bible. He
had sown a seed, but had not reaped a
harvest.
Honestly, I had a chuckle, much like when
my son was examining his elbows for new
muscle sprouts 5 minutes into his first
workout. I explained to this gentleman that
whatever you are harvesting now is not the
result of what you planted a few hours ago.
Today you are reaping what you planted
months ago, even years ago, in a different
season. Likewise, the seeds you plant today
won’t be ready for harvest by the next day
or even by next Sunday.
The amazing and sobering thought is that
we are all planting seeds all the time.
Sowing and reaping is not confined to
putting money in an offering plate. That
McDonalds cheeseburger you ate, that
movie you watched, that comment you
made, that time you spent with your family,
that book you read, everything you do is a
seed that will produce a harvest (good or
bad) in the future. Be careful what you
plant in this season, because you will eat it
in the next.
Now we are in the first month of 2015. I’ve
come a long way since I started my fitness
regimen. I have lost about 50 bad pounds
and put back on a few good ones. That
initial 90-day routine has turned into more
than four years of struggling. I’ve failed and
faltered a lot. I’ve doubted if I would ever
succeeded. But now I am finally starting
feel and see the fruit of my discipline and
hard work (and you might notice too if you
see any of the old pictures of me:-) But I
am not sitting back on my laurels and
celebrating with a box of donuts. In fact, as
I write this, I’m sitting here with my gym
shoes on, about to head out the door (I can
do more than one chin-up now:-). I realize
that today, even though I am reaping the
good fruit of what I planted in a previous
season, I am also planting seeds that I will
harvest in the next.
In the end, our lives are a sum total of the
decisions we have made…a harvest, if you
will, of what we have sown. You can’t
change today’s harvest by sowing good
seeds today, but if you will determine to
sow the right seeds, day in and day out, in
“due season” you will reap your harvest if
you “faint not”.
