reaping.

Thinking about sowing and reaping.

Not just the "you get what you deserve" kind of interpretation. But a broader, more life-long way of understanding the verse.

The idea that you sow and you reap in two separate  seasons of life.

That all those seemingly meaningless, day-after-day decisions we are making today are actually forming our latter days. We can think of our constant choice to stop and give grace-filled attention to a perhaps inconvenient interruption as adding compost to our field.

The choice to serve when we want to sit as preparing the soil with good, thorough plowing. Determining to obey when we'd rather do our own thing as putting down only the best seed. Yielding to God's correction instead of explaining it away and hardening your heart is like the rain pouring down at just the right time.

 

I can't help but think of people who are now in their reaping stage--and reaping with joy. And their lives have been filled with unconditional love... even (and perhaps especially) when it hurts. Serving, always serving. They are people who have learned to stop for people--knowing they are made in God's image. Who listen to God's voice and have allowed them to soften, mold and use them in the way He saw fit.

 

I also mourn for other sad, bowed reapers. Who sowed, day after day, in anger, selfishness, and duplicity--and now look around in somewhat dazed wonder. "What happened? How did I get here?"

I want to end it joyful--watching load after load of life-filled harvest. A life well-lived.