A man can sow alone. But if he has sown for more than himself, he cannot reap alone. Inherent in every seed is a thirty, sixty, or hundredfold return. When the time of harvest comes, if a man insists on keeping his field to himself, he will lose the bulk of the harvest he has labored so hard to sow. But when the harvest comes, if the man will invite the reapers into his field, to labor beside him reaping the ripened harvest of seed they have not sown in fields they have not plowed, and if he gives them a share of the harvest  (wages), then the sower and the reaper will rejoice together.  

 

Harvest does not require much faith. Harvest only requires 'ripe' eyes and faith to believe that if the harvest is ripe and the sun is shining then, aside from God and family, there's nothing more important in the world for the day than harvesting. Perhaps the greatest faith trophy for a harvester is to take a day of rest to honor God in a season when the harvest can be lost by a single day of delay. A harvester must believe, "now is the time, God will give me the strength to endure to the end, and good conditions will prevail until I'm finished." But a reaper does not need to believe God for the abundance of the harvest. That fact is a foregone conclusion based on the faith of the sower and the grace of God.

 

Faith for the harvest begins with the plow. The plowman must also believe, 'now is the time, God will give me the strength to endure to the end, and good conditions will prevail.' But the fuller measure of a farmer's faith is not plowed into the ground but sown with his seed. Once the seed is sown, it can neither be taken back nor added to. Once the seed is sown, the faith it represents has no choice but to manifest. Where faith is lacking, seed will be sown sparingly. Where presumption prevails, seed is sown wastefully. Sowing seed well requires knowledge of your seed, knowledge of your soil, and knowledge of and faith in God. But regardless of how well you know God, He can only bless the seed you've sown. Sowing is, perhaps, a man's consummate expression of faith. Sowing requires clearing, plowing, cultivating, planting eyes of faith.

 

Sowing is faith work. Before the harvest, the land has been cleared, plowed, cultivated, and sown. To see the rock-strewn, uneven, brush and tree-covered land as arable requires faith-filled vision. To plow the land, turning over its dark, virgin topsoil in anticipation of fertility is an act of determined faith. To gather the fieldstone, one stone at a time, and form these piles of stone into walls, is a labor of faith that sees the horizon of future generations. To cultivate the land, in preparation for seed that will soon be planted in it, requires faith in the potential of each seed. To sow the seed on land that, perhaps, has never been tested, without knowing what future the weather will bring, without knowing the real fertility of either soil or seed, but knowing that this year's grain must be sown for next year's harvest -- this is a sacrificial act of faith in God.

 

I used to stand in awe of those harvester-missionaries who brought back tales of the abundant harvest of souls in foreign lands. Now, as a missionary for over twenty years, I know the cost of such harvests and I am more impressed with plowers and planters than I am with reapers. Don't get me wrong. That is not to demean the work of harvesters. I am still impressed with the stamina of harvesters, working long hours, day after day, in hot fields, sometimes well into the night. Every work is valuable in its place. But harvesters would have no place to harvest were it not for those pioneers of faith that went before them, plowing and sowing. In retrospect, these are my new heroes -- quiet men and women of faith, of prayer, and of determination who understand that the harvest everyone rejoices in is the fruit of hard and humble labor that few want to engage in.

 

Michael Hennen