Trusting God For the Harvest

We plant the seeds, row after row and put them into the ground covered by the dark soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third son and his daddy, planting our little garden bed.  Baby hands growing into child, they gently lay them down, then roll the earth back over, tuck them in tight.  Pat them down and water them in, seeds in their soil slumber. 

We place them there tenderly and wait and hope for life to come up out of that dark place.

In just a few days we see rows of tiny green shoots popping.  Some don’t.  Some are eaten by chipmunks.  Some come up twisted, weak. 

Some are healthy, strong, beautiful.

As I watch this ground give harvest, produce its life, I see my planting, itself harvesting before my very eyes. 

I watch as this oldest son, oldest of the four boys, is before my very eyes becoming man.  Yielding life. 

How very fast it happens and how slow it can feel.  How you plant those seeds and you wait, not really ever knowing what they will produce.  If your planting will yield bounty or not. 

How in those early days when this first son was the only son how it felt that this planting would never yield, and the waiting was almost more than I could bear.  How this laying of seeds into the dark earth seemed so fruitless and wearisome.  How I labored to see the purpose in it and the idea of a harvest seemed like eternity itself.  What would these children become?  Would they trust and love God?  Would they know Him?  Would I ever be able to do this job of mothering well enough?  Would my plowing and planting produce anything lasting for eternity?

But then, when you least expect it, you see the first glimpses of green life, sprouting.

And then you know.

There is only One who can bring the harvest.

The job of the farmer is to plant.  And if life comes forth, to harvest, but only God makes it grow.

And as a parent my job is to faithfully plant truth and life into the dark soil of these children that have been entrusted to me and then wait, for only God can grow a harvest.

As I look ahead to the years of this youngest son and I know now how fast they will fly.

 

He wants to be just like his big brother. 

This oldest son showing him the way.  How a man works hard and shows up and does his job and responsibility isn’t just a talk but a walk and little tot follows these footsteps.

 I am going to just turn around and there he will be standing tall with his older brothers and sisters, row upon row, and see the yield of all that planting and weeding and watering. 

See the fruit of pulling up the weeds of sin and bad character by the grace of His hand.  See the blessing of seed that was watered with the Word that gives life. 

But there are no perfect farmers and no perfect parents, only those that are faithful to plant and weed and water.

And our job is not to do it perfectly, just faithfully, and entrust the harvest to the One who brings forth life out the darkness of soil.  And green life from a seed that goes down into the earth as if it were dead. 

And when you least expect it, life comes forth.