Sowing and Reaping

Sowing and Reaping

A good deed is never lost: he who sows courtesy reaps friendship; and he who plants kindness gathers love. Basil

This good word closely parallels that written in the Good Book--"…whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap," Galatians 6:7.  What neither says is that it takes varying amounts of time for any reaping to occur.  Grass seed springs up rather quickly; an acorn takes longer to emerge through the soil as a very tiny seedling.  But when it does, and when it has attained maturity, it far excels the stature of the grass!

And so it is in life.  There is sowing and there is reaping of consequences to our actions.  Often, it seems the reaping process occurs swiftly when it is bad seed.  Like weeds that spring up and flourish quickly and without tending, so the outcome of our missteps, our mistakes, our failures, our sins seem to flourish like weeds in the garden of our lives.  In fact, we can spend a lifetime tending our garden to overcome them.

When, however, we sow good seed, we know we will ultimately reap good fruit, but it may take time before we see any evidence of the outcome of our effort.  For whatever reason, the negative things seem to establish themselves more convincingly than do the positive things.  But that may simply be because of a disproportionate amount of time and energy we spend trying to remedy the mistakes we have made.  Like the gardener, we spend more time pulling weeds than we do watering the desired plants!

But even though we must be distracted from nurturing the good things in our lives by the attention we must give to negating the impact of the bad things, we still know that ultimately, the good will flourish and thrive while the bad will be uprooted.  Our diligence to the garden of our lives is achieved with the help of the One who is the Master Gardener and He has already applied the 'weed killer' to the negative things that strive to overtake the garden of our lives! 

We know He shall prevail because Galatians 6:7 begins with the assurance, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked.” As He will ultimately punish all sin that is not under the blood of Jesus, so will He eradicate all transgression that has been washed clean in the font that springs from the Savior’s veins.

Jesus has applied Calvary's Flow to the mistakes we have made and to the sins we have committed and He is resolute in His determination that they shall not overtake our garden!  He assures us that the evil things that have happened in our lives will be stamped out and the good things will flourish.  We stand on His Word and we trust in His help as we continue to sow good deeds, to sow kind words, to extol eternal truth, to reflect Christ's matchless love and to know that they are doing a work within us and through us!