Fall is generally associated with harvest. This is the time to reap all that has been planted, tended to and growing throughout the summer months. Farmers across the country are preparing and beginning to engage in the work required to bring in the bounty of their summer’s labor. In most cases this is the end of the growing cycle.
And yet, even in the season of harvest, bulbs and seeds are being carefully selected and planted. Some will provide food throughout the winter months and others will not bloom until next year's season. Others will lay dormant over the winter months and bloom into beautiful flowers that will reappear year after year.
Tulips bloom spring after spring outside my front door. Several years ago, during the same time that we were daily picking and enjoying the plants that had ripened in the vegetable beds of the backyard, we planted a handful of small, tan bulbs. The timing seemed wrong and the bulbs appeared very similar to those of other plants that are planted in spring. Yet we purchased, took home and planted them in the ground in an empty space in the front yard. Since then we have enjoyed the beauty of tulips every spring.
We have this promise from God concerning the seasons of time. “While the earth remains, seedtime
and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease.” (Genesis 8:22 AMP) This is
true of the earth and also in our lives.
In the fertile soil of our lives God has
planted seeds through His Word. Explaining His parable of a farmer who sowed
seed in several places, Jesus told His disciples this.
“Now the meaning of the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God.” (Luke 8:11 AMP) The soil is the
hearts of those who receive it. (See Luke 8:4-15) We who believe in Jesus and
receive His Word will be productive for God by living out His will. “But
as for that [seed] in the good soil, these are [the people] who, hearing the
Word, hold it fast in a just (noble, virtuous) and worthy heart, and steadily
bring forth fruit with patience.” (Luke 8:15 AMP)
The process
of planting and harvesting remains constant. “The earth produces [acting] by itself—first the blade, then the ear,
then the full grain in the ear.” (Mark
4:28 AMP) Everything the Lord accomplishes in us; He begins with a promise from
His Word. He then waters it with more Word and weeds out our hearts through
obedience. “Your word have I laid
up in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11 AMP) Growth is made possible through faith in His promise. “Now faith is the assurance (the
confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of
things [we] do not see and the
conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed
to the senses].” (Hebrews 11:1 AMP)
There may be little outward evidence, but God’s plans are being accomplished in
us.
Yet there is nothing binding the Lord to complete each work in us before
He begins another. God’s growing seasons can occur simultaneously and growth may
be at different levels in diverse areas of our lives. We may be harvesting and
reaping the benefits in an area of our life that we have allowed God to direct
the process of growth in us. We may also be in a ‘water and weed’ season in
other areas in our walk with God. Then suddenly a new Word from the Holy Spirit
and Scripture may be dropped into our hearts. Just that quickly a new work can be
planted and begin the process of growing to maturity. Isaiah speaks of the
mighty deeds God has performed in the past and then says,
“Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of
old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19
AMP)
It would be foolish to reject a new work of the Holy Spirit because there
is another in the growing stage. It would also be foolish to abandon a work in
progress because a new one begins. The most fruitful lives allow the Heavenly
Father to plant, nurture and harvest in His perfect time, cooperating along the
way. The result is beauty and nourishment. “He has made everything beautiful in
its time. He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working
through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so
that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes
3:11 AMP)
Be grateful for the work that has been completed in your life. Be
diligent to cooperate with what God is currently doing. Welcome the new with enthusiasm
even if comes out of season.
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