One of the most basic laws of the universe stems from a
fundamental principal in which the entire Bible is based upon. That is The Law of Reaping and Sowing. Most of us are familiar with it in one way
or another. There are lots of different
versions of this principal, you may have heard some of them, for instance;
“What goes around comes around.” “You
will only get out of something as much as you put into in”, or even “Charmer is
a _ fill in the blank)”. But the easiest
way to remember it is that “YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.” Simple enough right? All these familiar ancedotes that are rooted in the biblical principals of "Reaping and Sowing, which are based on the laws of planting seeds and reaping the harvest of whatever types of seeds you have planted.
Seeds come in many forms. There is of course is a Financial Seed, some of us may call it a tithe or an offering. And for those of us that practice some type of religion on a regular basis know that generally, this seed is first be planted in the chruch, or given back to God, as it is stated in" The Word". This is one of the most debated and controversial topics in the Bible, and no matter where you plant it or what you do with it, Money is still a Seed that is meant to be planted or invested someplace. More on this later.
Then next type of seed is the Seed of
Words. I believe that the seeds that we
speak are extremely potent and powerful weapons. It is also written in scripture many many
times over how important and powerful the words of our tongues are. (Proverbs 18:21) “The tongue has the power of
life and death.” (Proverbs 13:2) “From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys good
things.” (Matthew 21:21) Jesus said if
you say to this mountain move from here to there, it will move.” Jesus didn’t say think it, He said say it for
a reason. There is so much emphasis put on the words that we speak in scripture
because of the power that they hold in our lives. Anyone who knows me knows that one of the
things that I always say is, “Don’t put it out there.” What I’m really saying is, if you don’t want
it to happen, then why dig the hole and plant the seed for it. There is one thing that I know is that our
life follows our thoughts, and our words are the products of our thoughts.
Another
type of seed is the Seed of our Work, Toil or even our Deeds. This could be more easily
translated by saying these are the seeds of what we do, how we live our
lives. This can apply to how well we do
our job, the effort we put into it and the attitude we have when we are doing
it. It can also apply to how we treat the people we come into contact with,
that would include everyone from our coworkers, to the strangers that we meet
in line at the bank, and even to how we treat our family members. It also applies to our own lifestyle and
personal habits. For instance do you eat right and go the gym at least a few
times a week or do you eat fast food and sit watching TV several hours a day. In (Deuteronomy
16:15) it says that “God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work
of your hands”. But in order for God to
bless the work of your hands, you have to do something for God to bless. Another way to look at it is the efforts that
we put into something, is planting a seed for God to bless and grow it for
us.
But the final seed that I want to speak of is the Seed of a Setback. This is a seed that can be planted in a
situation where you have experienced a disappointment, painful loss or are experiencing regrets. Maybe you lost a job or
even experienced the death of a loved one or went through a divorce. Perhaps despite your best intentions you made
a decision that didn’t have a positive outcome and you just can’t seem to shake
the feelings of regret. This is the best
time to give these circumstances away as an offering to God.
Name thec circumstance as a seed, tell God what your expectations are for the seed, and
then plant it by giving it away to Him. Then let it go, trusting Him to manifest your return on it. Giving my disappointments and losses away to
God and planting them as seeds are a relatively new concept for me. But in the short time since I’ve learned it
and implemented it, it has helped me to forgive others and myself and move through
my disappointments, setbacks and events
that I don’t understand, so much faster than I ever could before in the
past. But there have also been other
remarkable benefits that have occurred or me as well.
I
had a situation occur on my job where I had worked really hard at getting this
new customer and bringing their account to our company. Do to some office politics I had to give it
away to a coworker who had nothing to do with obtaining this account. And to make matters worse, this is the same
coworker who had started untrue rumors and spread gossip about me. If you
follow my blog, you know that she had been trying to make my life hell since I
started working there. And now to make
matters worse, she had nothing to do with this sale I made and now I had to
give it away to her. But there was a
point where I had an opportunity to make a decision. Sould I give the account to her or “fix
it” so that no one ever knew that I had gotten the account at all. Therefore
she would not get it, make commission on it or receive any credit for it? I asked God what to do, and He was like, “ Come on you
know what to do, you know right from wrong, it’s your decision to choose to do the right thing or not.” So even though I literally had an adult
temper tantrum, kicking, screaming, tears a streamin’ on my bedroom floor. I
swallowed my own will and did God’s will instead. Although it still didn’t hurt any less just because I knew it was the right thing to do. So I
practiced this new type of seed that I had just learned about. I named that seed, I told God that since I
had just lost a 20 account deals, this account was worth about $30,000. I
offered it as a seed to Him and expecting a 100 fold return on it. I’m expecting to harvest a return of accounts
before the end of the year that will total at least $20 million dollars. I planted that seed on a Monday and by Friday
I had acquired another account worth $330,000 towards my $20 million dollar
goal. But the most interesting part of
this story is that the account that I received came to me from that same
coworker that I had to give my $30,000 dollar account to. She was forced by the owners of the company to
give it to me.
God
said in (Acts 2:35) “He would make your enemies your footstool. (Psalm 23:5) “He also said that he would
prepare a table in the presence of our enemies.”
I have seen times of
tremendous growth, favor and blessings since learning and applying these
principals to my life. That is certainly
not to say that I’ve never had hard times or financial difficultly, but somehow
God always showed up for me and made a way. Sometimes He did things for me that were
nothing short of a miracle. There was
one year when I was promoted three times, and my salary actually tripled as
well. Some may say its coincidence; well
I don’t believe in coincidence, I do however believe in The Laws of Seedtime
and Harvest. But to the Naysayers I say
try the Principal of Reaping and Sowing and see what happens for you. After all God even says in (Malachi 3:10)
“Test me in this.” Also I do have the benefit of having experienced both sides of this coin, so I can also say that the opposite is
true as well. For the most part I’ve been a
tither my entire adult life, but there was this one period in my life when I
decided that I simply was not going to continue wasting my money tithing or
giving offerings to church anymore. I was bitter and angry about many things in
my life at the time, and I blamed God. To
this day, that was the worse year of my life, in terms of my finances. I had actually lost two jobs that year, had to move out of my house and went through all of my savings, down to my very last penny. But in time I realized
that where I was in my life at that point was a direct result of my own
doing. I repented, came to my senses
and in the span of a single 24 hour period, God in His infinite mercy and love, took me from poverty to
prosperity. I went from having nothing in my bank account to having a huge commission deposited into my account, and I was also offered a new job the following week. From that point on I
promised God that I would never rob Him again by mistaking what was clearly His
and comingling it with mine.
What I have found is that God loves us so much that He has implemented a process where we can benefit and profit not just from our triumphs, but even the worse situations in our lives. All He asks is that we first plant a seed, then water it with prayers of faith, and give it the sunshine of joyful expectation, and last but not least, give it over to God to do the hard work of actually growing your crops. And one day if you are faithful, you will find that you can eat of the fruit of your long anticipated harvest.
