Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. (Leviticus 26:4)
God is a God of increase and harvest is always in the plan of God. The man who sows, reaps because through harvest, God rewards the diligent. Both nature and scriptures teach us that what we sow is what we reap (Galatians 6:7) and how we sow is how we reap. Paul is emphatic that whoever sows to the flesh will reap corruption and anyone who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap life everlasting (Galatians 6:8). The writer of Psalm 126 is clear that whoever goes forth weeping bearing precious seeds shall without doubt return with his harvest (Psalm 126:6). The idea of weeping painted in that scripture reminds us that the time to sow is often not a pleasurable season. This is more so when we consider that every seed sown is bread sacrificed. The man who sows forfeits the pleasure of the moment so he can gain it in the future.
Sowing is like investment and often comes with some pain, yet this pain is absolutely necessary if we are to taste the joy of harvest.
There is a part we must play – a part others should play and a part only God can play for us if we are to enjoy increase. Ours it is to sow, others it will be to water but ultimately increase comes only from God. Paul painted this picture very vividly when he wrote, “Paul planted, Appollos watered but it was God who gave the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-8). This underscores the role God and the support systems He has placed around us play in determining the size of our increase. It also underscores the three principal stages must go through if we are to experience increase. There is first the sowing, then the watering of the seed before the actual increase. Sowing is like dying. What we fail to commit to the earth brings no return. What we refuse to let go lacks the power to multiply. Jesus himself said “except a corn of wheat falls down and die, it abides alone, but when it dies, it brings forth much fruits (John 12:24). The process of multiplication requires first and foremost a dying and a letting go. There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty (Proverbs 11:24). It is in the nature of man to withhold. It takes a man who understands the ways of the spirit to sow in good and in bad times. When we do not sow, we keep the law of sowing and reaping inactive in our lives. While all men like the idea of a harvest, it takes the man who is busy during the planting season to anticipate a harvest. God’s covenant with Noah after the flood was that as long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest shall not cease (Genesis 8:22). If there is a seed time, there will unfailingly be a harvest time. No man walks into harvest simply by wishing.
The man who hasn’t cast his bread upon the water should not expect to see it after many days (Ecclesiastes 11:1). We are further admonished to sow at all times including in seemingly unfavorable condition.
We are called to look away from the winds or any such thing that will discourage us from sowing. The Bible is clear that the man who makes the wind (seemingly unfavorable conditions) his focus will never sow (Ecclesiastes 11:2-6).
Sadly, there are too many people, even among believers who merely daydream hoping for the best of returns by faith without the pains of investment. God multiplies our seeds, but that is only when there are seeds to be multiplied. In many ways, most people are far more sensible in the natural than they are in the spiritual. No one would expect to go his field at harvest time if he had planted nothing in seed time. It is only among self-acclaimed spiritual people who use faith as excuse for laziness that we hear of people believing for all things while doing nothing. This in itself violates the principle of increase which is clearly set forth in the idea of seed time and harvest. Interestingly, not even our prayers and fasting can bring harvest from a field that was never first tilled. While prayers may serve as an enhancer of our harvest, no more can prayer do than would fertilizers on a field without crops. The import of the foregoing is that when we shy away from from sowing quality seeds, we forfeit the harvest that would have been ours, no matter how much we fast and pray.
We must do our parts so God can do His, for truly, it is God that gives the increase. It takes more than sowing good seeds to guarantee a good harvest. We should never forget the need to trust the Lord of the harvest to help us watch over our field. And except God watches, the watchmen waketh but in vain (Psalm 127:1). The devil is still in the business of sowing tares among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-26). He has not stopped raising up thorns to choke up our seeds (Matthew 13:7). This is where conscious spirituality comes into play in watching over our seeds. When we sleep when we should watch, chances are high that we would someday wake up to see that what we sow is no longer what we see. The tares have the potential to colonize the wheat if we are careless enough to let them do so. If our investments in anything are valuable enough to us, then we must as Jesus put it, watch and pray over them (Matthew 26:41, Luke 18:1). This is so important because the enemy sows tares only while men sleep.
The covenant of blessing can only be activated through sowing and reaping. God says, He would bless the labour of our hands and give us rain in due season so our land may yield its increase (Deuteronomy 28:12, Leviticus 26:4). God could prosper Isaac in the year of famine but not until Isaac had first obeyed the instruction to sow (Genesis 26:12-14). We all wish that God did everything for us, but life does not go that way. It is true that the LORD will give us that which is good and cause our land to yield its increase (Psalm 85:12), but not when we fail to break up our fallow grounds and sow correctly (Hosea 10:12).
There is so much that the LORD desires to do in us and through us but only to the degree that we responsibly engage the eternal principles He has instituted. We must sow if we hope to reap, and he He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Wisdom will instruct us to sow in good grounds and not on rocky grounds, on land watered by the LORD and not in the patch places of the wilderness. When we invest in the direction that God is instructing us to invest, we can be sure of a harvest that is both rich and enduring (Psalm 1:1-3; Matthew 13:23). Sometimes, God prunes us again and again, just so our harvest will be plenteous (John 15:2; Hebrews 12:11). The process of pruning may be painful, but it holds secret to the abundance of fruitfulness.
The example of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21) clearly reveals that once God has given the harvest, it is important to Him how we administer our substances. Among the things that may rapidly deplete our harvest is a heart not truly given to generosity towards God and man (Malachi 3:8-10, Haggai 1:7-11). We should never allow ourselves to be tempted and destroyed by the same things God had designed for our blessings. Whether in sowing or in harvest, there is of necessity, first, the preparation of the heart.
