On Sowing and Reaping

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.  Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. – Proverbs 4:23-24

The heart includes what we generally call imagination, the visions, desire, inclinations, and plans – the things we wish for, hope for, and dream about. 

We all know that Jesus said, in Luke 6:38, “Give and it shall be given to you.”  It is a favored quote before the passing of the offering plate in church.  I do not dispute the truth of it.  It is a law of the cosmos as certain as the motion of the planets.  It’s just not limited to money.  The Lord says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.   Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Whatever measure – thimble or five-gallon bucket – I use in dealing with the world, God will use in repaying me.  And whatever it is I put in the bucket, God will return to me according the law of the harvest  … some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.  That is great if I sowed corn, not so great if I sowed lies and deceit.

The old saying is that you can’t cheat an honest man.  That’s not a one hundred percent guarantee, but it is a good general rule.  An honest man neither expects nor desires something for nothing, which is most usually the basis of a con.  It is thus much harder to cheat an honest person, and the cheat never really gets away with it while the honest won't suffer too much.  After all, the truthful are sowing the seeds of truthfulness.    

Avoiding the slough into which so much of the world seems to have sunk begins with garrisoning the heart and imagination with truth and righteousness.  The world is big on “authenticity”, but we need not embrace and celebrate the corruption of the old nature.  We should rather seek alignment with the new man, since … you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)

If I am too worldly perhaps it is because I have set my mind too much on the things of the world.  Are my thoughts like old hens that go out and pick through the barnyards dropping all day then come back to the roost to drop their own at night?  If I am constantly confronted by misunderstanding, misinterpretation, mistrust, rejection, loathing, anger, deception, or fear, is it possible that I am sowing those things? 

Of course, this world is not a bad place except for the people.  They are all sowing stuff, too.  I can’t do a thing about them.  This is where the St. Francis quote applies -- instead of worrying about changing the world, I am free to change worlds.  My family may be a bunch of conniving, twisted control freaks.  The people at work may be ungrateful, greedy, demanding jerks.  But I don’t have to work for them.  Everything I do, I may choose to do as “unto the Lord”.  It is the Lord for whom I work; it is the Lord from whom I receive.  Let others sow as they will.   Only I can prevent my harvest of righteousness.