Sowing

 

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3:19

Often, I despair with the condition of my dust. I feel like whenever God has allotted each human’s share of ground, someone, somewhere has made a mistake. Some people seem to be made of rich soil that require hardly any work, and they just have a harvest, others seem fitted to hold in them roots so deep that trees just flourish in them. And then there’s me. Rocky ground, arid dust and filled with pebbles. What am I supposed to grow in this soil? Then I remember the land God promised to the seed of Abraham. I have wondered time and again at how God was so particular to that specific land. If you’ve lived all your life in a place like Transilvania (vampire myths aside), where everything is green, forests, mountains, rivers everywhere, fertile ground as far as the eye can see and then you land in a place like Israel, it feels like the label ‘land of milk and honey’ seems like a gross exaggeration. Everything is dusty and dry. Unless you’re in Tel-Aviv or another costal city, you might as well be on the moon. Of course, the Israelis have gotten very good at irrigation systems, and they make the best of it, but that has not always been the case.

God took them out of Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world, and told them they’re headed for a land of milk and honey. And Moses warned them ahead of time, “For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” (Deuteronomy 11:10-12) A land that depends on God’s rain for its wellbeing. A land that is fruitful only at His word and hardens at His rebuke. The promised land is not fertile because of its geography or because of the quality of its soil, it’s fertile because God tends it. If you see the land in one of its unfruitful seasos, you’d have more hope for Mars than for Israel, but when God rains on it, oh make no mistake, God wasn’t exaggerating when He told Ezechiel it’s the most beautiful, glorious, of all lands (Ezechiel 20:6).

I might not be made out of the most fertile soil, I might be prone to droughts but that is only to make me more aware than most, that my wellbeing, my harvest depends on my God sending rain. There’s no use in wishing for better soil, nor cursing the one I was given. I was asked to sow in the soil I have. My job is to clear away the stones, to plow it, to sow the seed and uproot eventual weeds that might try to choke the seed. The rest is in the hands of my God. He knows when to send rain and when to withhold it. He makes things grow, not I.

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” – Hosea 10:12

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” -- Mark 4:26-29

I was given many kinds of seed. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 9:10) How? Through prayer by faith. Sounds cliché? Be that as it may, it’s true. Ask, believe and wait. You can’t plant your seed, pray and after two days go uncover it and see if it’s working. Leave the seed there, watch out for weeds, pray for rain and wait on The Lord. You can take that as easily as a child and test it, or go the different route. Go buy books that teach you all about farming. Then go to seminars about the different types of compost and fertilizers. Ooh! Organic! Even better become a speaker at conferences about the chemical processes that are involved in growing seed. Study about it, become an expert on it, talk to other experts about it even if you never got your hands dirty.

 Plant the seed God gave you through His word in the soil you’ve got and trust The Lord to give you rain and growth. If you’re anything like me, you’ve watered many a seed with tears prayed in faith to God. But even that is not in vain, because “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” – Psalm 126:5

Just believe and don’t stop.

by Cristina Pop

Decisions, decisions

The things we tell ourselves make all the difference. In that secret place, so secret that it might even be unconscious, we all tell ourselves things. Depending on if we’re in good circumstances or bad, we program ourselves to react, act or refrain from action based on whatever we insert into our soul in the decision-making mode. That’s why I don’t have an excuse the moment I have a disproportionate response to a situation: I know it’s just a reflexion of some decision I took long ago. Maybe someone said something slightly hurtful or offensive in a moment I was partial to getting offended and right there and then, whether I realise it or not I have decided NOBODY WILL EVER TREAT ME LIKE THAT AGAIN. Of course, it wouldn’t be strong enough if pride wouldn’t be an issue. But in some twisted way, at a time in my life when I was mentally unequipped with discernment, I must have decided that the way to combat someone making me feel small and insignificant was pride. So having programmed pride in my soul instead of a soul attitude that comes from knowing that regardless or what people see or don’t see, say or don’t say, I have value, I then react with pride or sarcasm to situations I’m confronted with. Or if someone I loved said something hurtful to me at a time when I was still young enough to not yet have a fully developed sense of self, I took that as supreme truth about myself and proceeded to incorporate it into the very walls and fabric of my inner world. I mistook their words spoken in tiredness, low blood pressure, despair, depression, anger, as absolute truths about myself and used them to build myself with. It’s twisted and pathetic but true. Then Light came in this twisted, mixed-up world and began exposing things for what they really are, primitive mechanisms to explain ‘reality’ to myself. But that’s not all that Light did, it didn’t just expose my shortcomings but provided me with tools, real tools not blunted carvings I had fashioned for myself out of lies, tools like love, mercy, peace, discernment, patience, kindness, hope. Things I’ve never owned or used in their true form before. I had borrowed such tools before, but never owned them. And Light gave them to me free of charge. It took a long time to learn how to use them and I must admit I still make a blunder of it sometimes. I often try to go at a situation with patience when it doesn’t work without wisdom. Another situation I face with wisdom instead of love. Another situation needs kindness, and I use caution. I’m not a master builder yet, but I am better than I used to be.

Having at my disposal proper tools, my whole decision-making mode has changed too. Rather than wait for a storm to come and then decide how I’ll react, I try to program myself ahead of time what tools I’ll reach for in any given situation. Not because I trust my decision-making skills to guard me in case of an internal earthquake, but because I know that, in as far as it is up to me, I will not work against the Light but WITH Him. If in my good days, I decide to be loyal to The Light, in my bad days I won’t try to find comfort in darkness just because it’s the easier choice.

There is a quote I love in Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte which I think perfectly illustrates this. Jane is a very simple, ugly, poor and friendless woman that ends up working for a wealthy aristocrat. They fall in love, but he is married, and she must decide between staying true to her principles or give in. This quote is describing her struggle, “They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger — look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair — soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?"

Still indomitable was the reply — "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unstained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am quite insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” – 1Corinthians 10:13

by Cristina Pop

 

Until we meet again

 

“When I don’t know what else to do, I sing to The Lord.” That’s what my grandmother always used to say. I don’t even have to close my eyes to see her in a memory, sometimes content, sometimes choked with tears, working or meditating, always singing. Last night I was trying to fall asleep, and I just had this vivid memory of us working in the field. I was just a child, and she was quite a way in front of me with her task. I remember how uncomfortable it all was, the sun scorching hot, and I had a rebellious moment when I wanted to be anywhere else and then I looked at her. She was singing a song I’ve heard her sing a million times and she had this look on her face as if she was somewhere else, at peace and happy. I didn’t understand where she was when she had that faraway look on her face, but I remember thinking that I’d follow her to wherever she was going. When I was little, I was jealous of her God that always had all her attention. Part of me loved Him because I knew He had her heart, and I wanted to be part of that too. I wanted to be able to sing to Him like she did. She had this hymnal she opened every morning and evening after finishing reading her Scripture and she was singing from it. I got jealous one day so while she knelt down to pray, I took the hymnal and scribbled in it. For no other reason other than I wanted a part of me in her treasured possession. Of course, I got punished but for the rest of my life, whenever she opened the book she reminded me, at first resentful and then smiling, “see, this is your doing”. In 2015, while visiting her, she said the same thing to me, so I took a pen and I said, ‘write down that you’re leaving me this book and your Bible’ she laughed thinking I was joking, but then proceeded to fulfil my request. She said, ‘you don’t even like the old hymns’

, I said, ‘I love you; I don’t need to love the songs. I love the one that sings them’.  On the 10^th of September, last year, she died. I lost both my parents 2 years apart but losing her made me feel well and truly orphan in this world. Maybe one day I’ll be able to talk about her without feeling like my raw skin is being pulled over broken glass. I confess I’m not there yet. Anyway, last night, while pondering what to do with all these feelings inside me, I remembered her singing. I’ve began listening to a song and it helped. I’m not mourning as those that have no hope, I know she went to be with The Lord, and I know I’ll see her again, I just dread all the time in between now and then.

 

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." - Revelation 21:4