Donna Beccia Carick
We’ve all heard the saying, “You reap what you sow.” Only a few people realize that this comes directly from the New Testament, in Galatians 6, which says “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” This sound a lot like the law of “karma,” and yet it is more than that.
There’s a lot to be learned from the process of sowing. First, a sower gets to pick his crop. He chooses the seeds, he prepares the soil, and he pulls the weeds while the crop is coming up. When the sower selects his seeds, he chooses from a variety of different options. Some seeds are “guaranteed” to grow, while somes seeds are not. The sower will spend the same amount of time planting the guaranteed seeds as the ones with no guarantee. It seems wisest to pick seeds that come with a guarantee.
Second, the sower chooses his seeds based upon the harvest that he wants. If he wants a harvest of zucchini and peppers, it would make no sense to plant watermelon seeds. He selects his harvest first, and then he selects the right seeds.
In Isaiah 55:10-11, it says that God Himself provides “seeds to the sower”, and these seeds are GUARANTEED! They WILL grow, exactly what crop God predesignated for those seeds. This passage also says that God’s seeds are His WORD. In Mark 4, Yeshua (Hebrew name for Jesus) was speaking to a large audience, teaching them a parable of the sower. He said “the sower sows the WORD.” After the crowd had gone away, Yeshua’s disciples approached him and asked for a private explanation of the parable. His response is absolutely startling. He said, “Don’t you understand this parable? How will you understand ALL the parables?” In essence, he was telling his disciples that every single parable was based upon this one. The information in this parable must be the key to understanding everything else that Yeshua taught! He said, “The sower sows the WORD.”
Now, let’s apply this to our lives. Since we reap what we sow, then the question is, what words are we sowing? Were we aware that today’s words will bring next month’s harvest? The harvest we are experiencing in our life today is a result of the seeds we sowed a while ago. Ouch! That requires personal responsibility for what is happening in our lives right now.
Another lesson of the harvest is that it takes time for crops to come up. When seeds are sown, they go under the ground, and we cannot see them anymore. Yet, something takes place in the soil, and the seed begins to germinate. Even then, we can’t see anything happening. There is a process of waiting, and then the crops begin to emerge through the dirt. Hebrews 11 says that “faith is the EVIDENCE of things NOT SEEN.” Does it take blind faith to believe that a crop is coming? Of course not! We sowed our seeds. Faith is simply a matter of waiting for the crop!
From the moment that the seeds are sown, until the moment that they begin to sprout, there MUST be a waiting period. In our world of instant gratification, we forget that we must wait for things we have sown. Too often, we sow our seeds and walk away from our harvest. We don’t stick around to water the ground and pull the weeds. We move on to another field, and start sowing again. When our crop does come up, we may not go back to harvest it! We may forget completely that we even had a harvest coming. Someone else may come along and reap what we sowed! If we are not faithful, waiting for our harvest, then we miss out on the blessing!
Here’s another great lesson about sowing and reaping. It takes effort to prepare the soil and plant the seeds. It takes no effort to get weeds. The weeds grow quickly and can steal the water supply from the germinating seeds, choking off their growth. In Mark 4, Yeshua told his disciples that the weeds “choke the word” (remember, words are seeds). He defined the weeds as “the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust for other things.” This parable teaches us that these things can destroy our crop, partially or totally. After going through great efforts to sow, we should be watchful when the weeds come, and they will!
Does our harvest keep coming up, year after year? Some plants do come up every year, just as some words that we sowed will affect us for a lifetime. Yet, the majority of plants have a seasonal crop, and then it’s gone. The great lesson here is that we may sow unwisely, using unfruitful words, abusive words, negative words, etc., and we reap the crop from that for just a season. We can be hopeful that the harvest will eventually end, and we can enjoy a new harvest, sown from our positive words, uplifting words, and encouraging words.
“What a man sows, that he will also reap.” Are we enjoying the harvest that we sowed in the past? The good news, we have the power to change it. We need to select guaranteed seeds, God’s words, and sow only them. Then, we apply faith, wait for the crop, and enjoy a completely new season of life!
It would be utterly foolish to expect a crop if no seeds were ever planted. Likewise, we would be foolish to expect great things to come our way if we have made no investment of time to harvest great things.
We choose our harvest! Choose wisely!
This article was written by Donna Beccia Carick, co-leader of Shalom Yeshua Ministries. You can correspond with her at donna@ShalomYeshua.org. For information about upcoming events hosted by Shalom Yeshua Ministries, join their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/SHALOMYESHUAMINISTRIES/events/.
