Tag: Harvest

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People are a messy business.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

“Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭14‬:‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The humor, candor and wisdom of Proverbs has always impressed and challenged me – my entire Christian life! Knowing that the entire book is a direct reflection on God’s character, the image of Jesus makes complete sense. God created humans out of chaos. And, our sin, our choices brings daily chaos into our lives and the greater blue globe we live on as well.

This Proverb is totally about us and the stable is the world in which we live. No people, no crazy, no mess. People = messiness. A dear friend and former pastor-boss quoted this Proverb constantly while dealing with the never ending messes, damage and drama in the church building. He would let us decorate the auditorium for kid’s events, plastering massive themed partyware everywhere. And staples, oh, we must have used hundreds of thousands over the years. We trashed the pristine sanctity of the sanctuary. You know what he said about it? He just quoted this verse! “Without oxen, a stable stays clean.” I always enjoyed the object-lesson picture in my mind of hundreds of oxen and the “mess” they must leave behind! But, oh, doth the oxen doeth the work! Hundreds if not thousands, over the years experienced God in a fun, wild atmosphere within the church building!

Would we have the church, or our own lives, for that matter, reflect more of a mortuary/morgue atmosphere? Where the dead are super clean and oh so quiet? I’m might be so inclined to tweak the Proverb to say, “without children, a house stays clean.” Or, “without people, the church stays clean,” as well. Kids are messy, youth are messy and we might as well admit it, adults are messy too. We may look all neat and tidy on the outside, but inside we have the seething brew of conflicts, comparisons and complications of adulting! If you ever wondered why the Church is a place of pandemonium, look no further than our own hearts.

Amidst all the chaos and clutter of humanity, God so loved us and redeemed us to be His advocates, His ambassadors, His reconcilers in this grand field of life. So yeah, we get a whole lot of messy, but with the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us we get a heck of a lot of Godly work done as well. So be strong and courageous my fellow oxen! Put on that easy yoke of Jesus and experience the joy of working in God’s field of humanity!

Prayer

Dad,
Put me in coach! Yoke me up and put me to work. Thank you for helping us keep a very busy, massively messy stable clean. I appreciate every bit of chaotic life that comes with being a human. Especially knowing that your grace is greater than the messes I create in myself and others. Thank you for creating me, redeeming me and putting me in the field to work the harvest of souls who are desperately in need of you.

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The law of lazy.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. A wise youth harvests in the summer, but one who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace.” Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I can’t stand the word lazy. The reason; my mother swore I was lazy and told me so. The truth; in comparison to my adopted mother, I was lazy. She worked very hard, ALL-THE-TIME. She was a line-worker at a thermostat company in Long Beach, California – Robertshaw. She was an assembler. Think Lucille Ball on the candy conveyor belt episode. She was a union gal and a fierce advocate for herself and those who worked hard for very little money. She was up and out the door of our house everyday weekday at 4:30am and didn’t get home until 3 or 4pm. Saturdays were clean the house day, so she slept in until 7am when she would flip on the alarm clock/vacuum cleaner announcing that a day of chores had begun. Cartoons on Saturday were always a negotiable luxury. IF all basic, daily chores of bed making, room spotless, teeth brushed, face washed, hair combed, and breakfast (at the dining room table only) was finished. PLUS, the promise of hard-labor, yard work, then and only then was few morning cartoons an option. Mom would continue vacuuming in the back of the house, but we knew it was eventually coming to the living room where we had the one and only television set. So, yes, comparatively, I AM lazy! But I was just a kid, then I was just a teenager – you get the picture.

What my mother was trying to teach me, but I never got it, was this principle: laziness and work yield results! Laziness yields ZERO results. Work yields results like resources, money and opportunities. The Biblical principle is a law of nature. If you put the phrase, “sowing and reaping” into a search engine, it will give you pages and pages of Christian responses. However, if you put “gravity” in the same search engine, you’ll get pages and pages of secular/scientific responses. You know that sowing and reaping is a scientific fact, right? If something isn’t planted, nothing is the guaranteed result. Planting is necessary to reaping. In the odd parable of the talents that Jesus told, the person given one talent, yet buries it, is scolded by the owner. In a very one-talent, defensive response, the one talent person says, of the owner, you are a hard man “reaping where you have not sown.” What? Really? This parable is a lesson of God’s expectation that His kids inherently know. God sows into us and expects to reap results. Those results are certainly salvation, but also to whom much is given, much is required. The last thing I’d want to be is lazy with what God has given me!

Also, what a tragedy if I were to be so busy sowing and find myself sleeping when it comes time to harvest. Again, I’m no farmer, but I have seen some great movies about living off the land. To think of all the work, money and time it takes to prep and plant seed in a field and then to watch it all rot because it was not harvested. When it’s harvest time, everything and everyone makes it the top priority to bring it in! God has been planting seeds of the gospel in the culture right around us – even today. He has been working long hours cultivating the soil of human hearts. Some of us have been participating with him in this endeavor. I tell you, there is a harvest coming. There is another revolution on the horizon. Who knows, it may be the last big one! I do not want to be lazy nor unprepared to get out into the fields and reap God’s abundant harvest that’s coming.

Prayer

Dad,
I not only want to be a part of sowing seed, the good news of your love, salvation, rescue and redemption. I also want to be a part of the great harvest. I want to be the Dad who goes out to the road everyday, looking for signs that our prodigals have returned. And with fast legs, waving open arms and rejoicing voice, I want to say welcome home.