So I’ve decided that it’s time to get back in shape and my method of choice is a 90-day workout and diet plan called P90X. One unique feature of this program is that all the workouts are on video and you follow along with a virtual room full of muscle bound athletes that seem to chuckle at you condescendingly as you struggle with your 6th chin up.
A couple of days ago, my 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter were joined by their mother who decided that they wanted to exercise with me and so the four of us together were warming up for a invigorating plyometric workout. We were only about 5 minutes into the video – still somewhere in the stretches – when my son turned to me with great excitement and said, “Hey dad look…you almost got muscles…look at your elbows!”.
My wife and I had a real good laugh, but my poor son never got what was so funny. I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that it doesn’t work that way. It takes a long time and many doughnuts, followed by excessive periods of sedentary inactivity and lack of resolve to become as out of shape as I am. And getting fit, loosing weight and building muscle doesn’t happen overnight either…much less after a few minutes of warming up.
Imagine what it must have been like to grow up on an ancient Israeli farm. The long winter months have reduced the once plenteous pantries to empty shells and the family is now living on meager rations and dreaming about a loaf of bread, fresh from the oven. Suddenly the rain begins to pour and the once dusty fields are becoming rivers. The father says to his young son, “come, it’s time to sow”. Together they walk out to the barn where the father climbs into the loft and pulls down huge bags of grain. “Father” the young boy exclaims, “Now we can make bread!” “No my son…this grain is not for eating. Come I will show you what it is for.” He fills a sack with grain and they wade into the flooded fields. Then the father does the most incredible thing. He reaches into the sack, pulls out a handful of grain and throws it into the water! That night at the dinner table, the little boy eats his paltry portion and wonders why his father wasted so much grain. Many weeks will go by before he understands, but one day the water will rescind and the little boy will step outside and behold a miracle. The fields will be full of tiny sprouts, racing heavenward to produce a harvest of golden grain.
It was this ancient farming technique that Solomon was referring to when he wrote, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” (Eccl. 11:1)
Throwing perfectly good grain into the water is a difficult thing to do, but what is more difficult is waiting MANY DAYS for the harvest. This is why Paul encourages us by saying, “let us not be weary in well doing: for in DUE SEASON we shall reap, if we faint not.”
The laws of sowing and reaping are universal wether learned by a little boy on an ancient Israeli farm or a little boy in the gym with is dad. Unfortunately…these are principles that many adults still do not understand.
When I was a pastor a newly saved church member approached me after the service one Sunday morning. He was obviously disgruntled and wanted a word with me. “Pastor”, he said, “The Bible says to ‘test God’ with the tithe and offering and that’s exactly what I did.” He went on to explain that before he became a Christian and started attending the church his family had been going through a season of great financial hardship. Now that he was learning about the Bible he read Malachi’s guarantee that the “windows of Heaven” would be opened over those who give.
The past Sunday he decided to “test God”. He emptied out his wallet in the offering plate and gave for the first time. But the subsequent week was not as he had anticipated. His financial difficulties continued and he was concerned that there was something wrong with the Bible. He had sown a seed, but had not reaped a harvest.
Honestly, I had a chuckle, much like when my son was examining his elbows for new muscle sprouts 5 minutes into his first workout. I explained to this gentleman that whatever you are harvesting now is not the result of what you planted a few hours ago. Today you are reaping what you planted months ago, even years ago, in a different season. Likewise, the seeds you plant today won’t be ready for harvest by the next day or even by next Sunday.
The amazing and sobering thought is that we are all planting seeds all the time. Sowing and reaping is not confined to putting money in an offering plate. That McDonalds cheeseburger you ate, that movie you watched, that comment you made, that time you spent with your family, that book you read, everything you do is a seed that will produce a harvest (good or bad) in the future. Be careful what you plant in this season, because you will eat it in the next.
In the end, our lives are a sum total of the decisions we have made…a harvest, if you will, of what we have sown. You can’t change today’s harvest by sowing good seeds today, but if you will determine to sow the right seeds, day in and day out, in “due season” you will reap your harvest if you “faint not”.
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praying is also sowing a seed because i am from south india in 2005 i prayed for north india evangelism now i am working in a world class company in north india amen
Hi,
Please pray for a good christian husband for me. I am thirty-eight today & would like a family while I still have time. I am a chaste woman of Proverbs 31.
Pleas epray I meet he right person soon. I have wasted hundreds of pounds on christian dating agencies.
I have a mother & uncle still alive & have no other relatives. Pleas epray the next man that comes into my life will be the right man for me. He is taking a long time to materialise and I do want o marry the right person soon.
Thanks
Catriona Brown
Great man ! The elisha of the generation . Praise God for you and am sure you are God voice to me. GOD BLESS YOU. Everyday i read your inspirational and motivational , supernatural articules . Thank you God ‘s voice. With love from ibadan , nigeria . Student from lead city university , ibadan. Now have started with formular P90x.
The word is near you the word is in your mouth and in your heart. Jesus give us the holy spirit to guide us and to help us. But He give us authority to speak the word and it is like a sword to penetrate the obsticle and pain and problem. What you believe and what you speak it will happen. That is why God say my thoughts are not your thoughts. Think higher … think bigger … I am who I am ..
Lets walk in love and walk in faith… But speak the truth and the truth will set people free.
Love your blog …
Keep doing what you doing Kolenda you sow the biggest thing you sow your life and your time for this broken world. God say I will make your storehouse full and I will blessings overcome you that people will taste and see that I am God.
Dear Evangelist,
I am blessed by what you shared…….ur sharing brightens my face………….. just as written in Eccl …..wisdom brigtens face, it changes hard appearance..God bless.
I daniel,
I attend Champions Church in Dudley, UK. where you spoke a few weeks ago. Pastor Mark anounced that a local church where he went to speak at had the Pastor stop the service half way through and gave Mark the entire contents of it’s own builing fund.
The local council planning department was causing so many problems with the land that they wanted to build on that the church thought that rather than hold onto money for something that was never going to happen they might has well put the money towards something that is/has happening (Champions new 2.4 million church). The church gave £4’000.00 to Gods work at Champions and as Mark is always telling us, when we/you open our wallets/purses then God opens the doors of Heaven to send us a blessing. In this case the Church that gave all it’s builing fund one day, received 10 days later the go ahead from the council to start their builing project. But with no money they had a problem, BUT with God on thier side there was also a cheque with the letter for £30’000.00 off the Goverment to help with the project. What a God we serve.
Awesome “case-in-point” testimony Paul. Praise God! We had a wonderful time at Champions Church and I look forward to coming back one day. Blessings!
“You don not begin school in the 1st grade and graduate from the 12th grade in a week–it is a process”
It’s like you’re preaching my message Ernest!
Great article Dan! I am going to need patience as I try to work off all those donuts as well starting P90X. Be blessed!
Come on Russ! Let’s get in shape together. Let me know when you get your P90X
SUPER MESSAGE. Well done. . . and well said.
THANKS MAN!!
Amen!
I just want to add one thing, I believe anyways. We will reap what is sown under the blood. I believe that bad “seed” that is repented of is canceled by the blood of Jesus. I have seen so many times some major sin is happening, the person get right, repents, and somehow God restore them to before the sin happened canceling all bad “seed.”
I am not prepared to write a book on this and submit it as “truth” yet. It is something I do believe and have seen all over the world.
I can see what you are saying and it is a good point. It’s definitely true for many situations, but definitely does not hold true for all. For instance, a person who has wasted their lives in sin cannot go back and re-live those years. This kind of leads into a bigger discussion about judgement vs reward. Salvation is through grace by faith and has nothing to do with works. Eternal reward, on the other hand, has everything to do with works which are tried by fire and proven to be wood, hay & stubble or gold, silver & precious stones. Great thoughts though Peter. Good to hear from you. Blessings!