Reaping and sowing

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

–John 6:35

We have all heard it and many of us have said it, “What we sow, we reap.” We may understand this but what we fail to grasp is that we do not reap in the same season we sow. It is absurd to think we could plant squash seeds this morning and eat fried squash for lunch. The harvest never comes immediately after planting.

The appropriate time, we will reap what we have sown, whether good or bad. This is really about the choices we make now that affect our future. If we make bad decisions, we will reap difficult circumstances. Just as there are seasons in agriculture, there are seasons in life as well.

Some Observations About The Seasons Of Life:

Change Is Inevitable, But God Is In Control - life isn’t really random after all. We experience many things in life because God, in His complete sovereignty, has ordained all of them for our lives...the bad, the difficult and the painful as well as the pleasant, the comfortable and the delightful. God is in control of all, and even when none of it makes sense to us, we can trust His infinite wisdom.

We Will Not Always Understand – At some point we become aware that there has to be more to this life than just the chaos we live out day to day. Hard times come and seasons change, and we often try to fi- gure it all out on our own. But as humans we cannot see the big picture. Isaiah 55:8 tells us “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. He sees the beginning and the end and the everything in between. We can only see what is right before us. This is where the blind faith and trust in Him comes in.

Life Can Be Managed But Not Manipulated - The effort to try and manipulate the seasons of our lives in order to gain some advantage or profit in our lives “under the sun” is futile. God has His seasons. We can’t manipulate life and the seasons of life for our own benefit or profit. We don’t get to determine when we experience these various seasons. That is completely in God’s hands.

Even though we cannot control life, we are responsible for how we live our lives. The good things we are working on, the people we are pouring into, we may not see the fruit and that is something we have to accept. The fruit comes in a different season that the sowing of the seed. God wants us to trust Him, persevere through the seasons of life, even when we don’t quickly see the fruits of our labors, keep sowing the seed.