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Even if you are not a farmer, you understand that seeds must be planted for things to grow. You also understand that once those seeds have grown, a farmer must harvest those seeds. This is called seedtime and harvest. This process is not privy to modern times, or even the times of our grandparents. No. This process started back in the time of Adam and Eve. The cool thing is, this process doesn’t only apply to the world we can see, but also to the invisible world. What I mean, is that we plant seeds that are unseen to the human eye every day. Every action we make or word spoken is a seed planted. These seeds that we plant will eventually grow and will need to be harvested.
If you plant the seed of hard work, your work will produce a harvest that hopefully is rewarding for you and worth the effort to plant. If you plant the seed of kindness, hopefully, your harvest will be sweet. In everything that we do, we plant seeds, and those seeds will grow. Once they grow, the harvester, who happens to be Jesus, will come through and we will reap what we have sown. The question to ask yourself, is what seeds have I been planting?
I asked myself that question the other morning while I was spending time with the Lord. I can’t tell you for sure if God spoke to me directly or if he just allowed me to reflect on myself. All I know is that I somehow was looking back on how I have acted and lived in this last year. When I thought through the year, I was somewhat disappointed in myself. As you all know and have experienced, this year has been an unexpected rollercoaster ride. I am pretty sure 9 out of 10 people would raise their hand and agree to that. For me, this year has brought about a lot of unstable changes. Sometimes I do not know where the year is going or what is going on.
During times like these, it is important for me to reflect on the glory of Christ. I believe that faith, hope, and love are necessary to survive in times of darkness. But, when I look back on important vital moments of this year, I realized I didn’t spread any of those, but the exact opposite. I missed the mark during this season on so many occasions, too many to count. I realized that I have been planting a lot of seeds this year, but they are not good seeds. I forgot that we are seed planters, so whatever we do or say is planting a seed that will be harvested.
The Word of God talks about how life is about seedtime and harvest. We plant seeds with what we do, say, how we live and how we treat others and then we reap a harvest from those seeds. I am going to need to spend more time reflecting on all the seeds that I have planted this year, but a particular seed comes to mind. I can honestly say that my mouth has gotten me in trouble this year. When I think about the seeds that I have planted with the complaining and negativity that has come out of my mouth, I am saddened and disappointed in myself. How did I get here? When did my positivity, and my genuine process of speaking life, turn into seeds of doubt, negativity, meanness, and complaining? I am a vessel of the Lord, who is supposed to bear fruit and speak life. I lost sight of that. What do seeds of negativity and gossip produce, I wonder? What fruit will my seeds produce at harvest time? I am a little nervous. How did I get here? I can't pinpoint the moment, but I have an idea.
The word of God talks about how we are to bear fruit. The seeds that we are planting should bear fruit, but there is only one way to bear good fruit. John 15 says this:
“ ‘I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me? I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
The above scripture says “Remain in me, and I will remain in you”. In a different translation, the scripture says “those who ABIDE in me, and I in them” bear good fruit. I can not bear good fruit outside of Christ. I must abide in him. The biblical definition of Abide is “to remain stable in a state or to continue in a place”. I see it as “living in”. When I think of abiding in Jesus, I think about living in Him and Him in me. It is a constant unbreakable bond. I should constantly be in the state of His presence. Out of that bond, good fruit is produced. This is where I believe my issue is.
I’ve realized that I haven’t been abiding in God, but have been requiring Him to be available when my schedule is open. I pencil Him in for the morning session and sometimes I am late for the meeting or miss it altogether. If He calls at a later time to meet, I kindly remind Him that our meetings are scheduled for the morning, so I will see Him then. It’s easy to ignore a call when your flesh has the phone in hand. There have been some good moments, so I am not going to knock that. There have been moments where I make every morning meeting. There are times when I answer the late-night calls. These times are precious to me and allow me to grow. These are the moments where our relationship becomes stronger. But then He asks me to sacrifice something that I can’t seem to give up and I fall back into my old habits of missing meetings or requiring Him to stay on my schedule. How am I expecting to produce good fruit in that kind of atmosphere?
Let me take this moment to inform you all, that I do have a relationship with the Lord. It will never be perfect, simply because I am the other half of that relationship. But I do seek to honor God and grow closer to Him. The issue is, I want and need more. When you spend a lot of time with someone, you begin to reflect on their traits. Jesus is a planter; whose seeds produce good fruit. If I abide in Him, I will reflect that trait. If I abide in him, the words that come out of my mouth will be words that give life, not tear down. Those words will plant seeds of encouragement, not negativity. I know that this is not an easy feat, and it doesn’t happen overnight. I know that I am on a journey and have a long way to go. But the other day, I realized that my lack of constantly abiding in Christ is causing me to plant bad seeds, and ultimately produce bad fruit. That is not the life I want to live........ There is hope though.
I think about how God reminded me that I am a seed planter and that my actions and words plant seeds. He kindly and gently whispered in my ear so that I could wake up and look at my actions and realize that I am planting bad seeds. This is all because He loves me. He was not about to let me live in an unfruitful state. God is always with me, and my hope is in Him. I am so very thankful.
I have a lot more reflection to do, but I know that he will walk with me and help me. I am not alone in this journey. This upcoming year, I want to abide in Christ, so that that I will be someone who plants good seeds.
I want to invite you to reflect on your life. For this exercise, it doesn’t matter if you are a believer or not. Take a moment and look at your life. What seeds have you planted this year? Are they good or are they bad? Make a list and do some self-reflecting. Once you have done that, take a moment and speak to God. Ask him how you ended up planting those seeds. Ask him for his forgiveness and healing. Lastly, ask him to help you plant better seeds going forth.
We are in this together. If everyone in the World planted good seeds, what would it look like? A world full of hope, love, encouragement? Who knows, but I know it would be beautiful!
So I have a question for you,
What seeds, have you planted this year?
- Moriah
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