“I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”  John 4:38

Abundant Harvest

On Saturday, I picked a beach bucket full of ripe strawberries. It was so easy, all I had to do was look beneath the branches and gently pull when I saw bright red berries. Sometimes I found several ripe strawberries in one spot—jackpot! There were many more berries that were not ripe yet, so I left them on the vine until the next day. It is such a delight to have so many berries, growing right outside my back door. I washed the berries, gave half of them away, and still had so many left over that I had to freeze them. 

I have never considered myself a gardener, and indeed I did not plant these berries.  I don’t know who did. I only know that I am reaping the fruit that someone else sowed. I was so happy with my free harvest and thought about how much work someone else had done before I lived here. 

Before planting the seeds, the soil needed to be right. Rocks would have needed to be removed, and that alone is an arduous, unpleasant, time-consuming task. I have no idea if the person who planted the berries ever got to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor. But since I moved in last year, the berry patch has doubled in size, and is expected to double in size again by this time next year.  

I think it is easy to get discouraged when we don’t see the fruits of our hard work. We start to doubt if we actually heard God correctly when we enthusiastically took on some sort of ministry that we believed the LORD had somehow let us know was our job to do. In your mind, you are picturing the ripe red strawberries, but at the end of the day, all you see in front of you is rocks and dirt. It just may be that you were called to sow a seed that someone else, later in time, will reap. “I planted the seeds in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

Abraham was promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars (Genesis 26:4), but he was one hundred years old before the first child of this promise was born (Genesis 21:5). But even before Abraham saw the harvest, he “…believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).

What has God told you? What is the vision you have been given?  

“Dear heavenly Father, we do not always understand Your ways or Your directions. Often we think that what we see is the end of the story, and we are so discouraged. But thank You that You see Your completed work. Please encourage our doubting hearts this day. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”