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