Have you ever cried so hard you couldn’t see? You were literally blinded by your tears. Our emotions can overwhelm and overtake us. They can be more powerful than anything you can imagine. The Christian is not exempt from these overwhelming feelings.
God calls the Christian to a life of great paradox. In this life there will be sorrow but joy will come in the morning. I am called by God to let go of my life in this world, to lose it, that I might gain a better and more lasting one. I am also called to give up those that I love, even my own children. This is hard, and that is an understatement.
I am a stay at home mother of five. I have not worked outside of the home for nineteen years. Home is my hub and I have given my life’s energy to the love, care and nurturing of my children. Yet, if I were to care for them and serve them only for them to live their lives a certain way, I would turn them into possessions, controlling and manipulating them. This is not love. They are their own people, created by God in His image to go and live the life that God has planned for them. This means that they may not make choices that I would agree with or that would meet with my approval. They must go out, away from me into the world. But, they go out with many, many seeds having been sown into their hearts and minds. These seeds carry the radical life changing gospel of Jesus.
When gospel seeds sprout and grow, eternal truths come alive in the heart. These kernels of life-giving grace cannot help but bring about powerful change. This is a mysterious transaction, only accomplished through the Spirit of God.
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| Sower With Setting Sun by Vincent Van Gogh |
A sower’s work can be sapped of all love and joy if his eyes are only on the outcome of his sowing. If a sower sits down in the dirt and watches over the seeds he plants, willing them to grow, he is a fool. Any farmer will tell you, you plan, you plant the best seed you can, you fertilize and protect it and then you wait. That is all that a sower can do. The power of life is in the seed not the sower. No one knows the particulars of how and when a seed will grow. But seeds can surprise you.
A few years ago I threw out some rotting ornamental gourds that I had used for decoration. Unbeknownst to me these rotting gourds found a fertile place to produce more gourds. The next summer and fall a crazy looking vine began to grow from underneath my porch. Completely unaided and unplanned, this vine produced beautiful ornamental gourds for several years. Like my gourd vine, the gospel does crazy, surprising things.
When I was a young woman of 22, Chris and I spent a week in Mexico. One afternoon I attempted to share the gospel with a small group of people in a shady plaza. I read off of a tract in halting broken Spanish and then pleaded with my translator to help me. It was not a stellar gospel presentation. The small group that had gathered to listen didn’t seem too impressed. After I was finished and was turning to leave, an excited young mother came up to me and grabbed my arm. She was pleading with me to stay and talk with her. My translator explained that she had been standing behind me listening intently to everything I had said. She told me that she believed what I was sharing about Jesus. She wanted to know how to be a Christian and what she should do. After I closed my gaping mouth, I asked the translator to help her connect with a local church. The young woman hugged me and went off with joy in her step. God had placed me there to scatter the seed of the gospel, the power was not in my knowledge or ability!! I sowed, He brought forth the harvest and Christ received the glory.
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| In the Rye Field by Vassily Maximov |
I have often wondered if all that I am doing is enough. What if I look back and no one is affected by my life? What if I am throwing all of my seed into the wind?
And my answer is, yes, that may be what happens. I may look back and see people I love and care for walking in their own selfish path apart from the Lord. I may see a lot of sorrow and pain. I may not see many plants grow, bud and produce fruit. Therefore, I must widen my lens.
God is jealous for His own glory and will not share it with another. Everywhere that I have walked and sown seed is from God. He gives me what I have in my hand to do and who I have in my life to love. He shows forth His love and power to save, change and heal, not me. I have sown in sorrow, deep sorrow. I have walked off of the field and prayed and hoped to see seeds turn into life. But this sorrow is not meant to last. There is a joy yet to come.
Paul, that amazing missionary church planter says, “I planted… but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”I Cor. 3:6-7 This is our role, to plant not to produce life. But does God care for the sorrowful sower?
Christ’s heart was broken for His own people. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”Matt. 23:37 Paul also shares his own sorrowful heart, “I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen.”Romans 9:1-3
Christ and Paul sowed seed with sorrow in their hearts, but they did so out of a great and powerful hope. They treasured a promise. “Jesus said, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mark 10:29-30 The gospel sower gains an eternal family even as he or she loses a natural one. One day I will see just how grand and amazing my family is!
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| Two Peasant Women Digging in a Field With Snow by Vincent Van Gogh |
Last week I sat in a pew with about 20 other people, all of different ages, backgrounds and family origins. Nothing drew us together but Christ and His grace. We are all gospel sowers, hoping to go and plant seeds that will sprout and grow in another’s heart. Like Paul and like Christ, we go out carrying seed to sow and we hope and pray for a harvest to reap, first within our own homes and then out in the streets and towns. We all have questions, fears and anxieties that we struggle with; we sow sorrowfully.
We come together to remind one another of the great things that God has done in us and for us, the things that gladden our heavy hearts. We remind one another that the one, “who sows in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5-6 One day I will stand in amazement at what God has wrought, leaving all of my wildest dreams and prayers in the dust.
The days may seem long and hard, but my gray hair, slowing gait and weakening eye sight are here. It won’t be long before I too will see all that God is doing in the broadest, most eternal sense. I need to renew my grip on the gospel plow even as I pray for a joy that cuts through the sorrow. I am praying for Christ and His Spirit to fuel my steps as I plow through the rain and cold, the heat and rock hard ground. I don’t need anything for my journey, not the love and praise of family or friends, nor the false fulfillment of this world. I need the sweet freedom to love and sing and sow beyond this natural world and into the next. So fellow sojourning sower, keep your eyes on the prize. God is the One who has called you to sow, plant and water the good seed that He has given to you. God’s purposes are ripening fast, hold on.
~ Your Fellow Sojourner
