Time to Plow

Just outside our neighborhood, there is a huge field.   Being new to the area, it took some fact finding research to discover what the crop even was.  Turns out it is a crop of sugar beets. I will tell you a little secret, because I am a curious soul, one time when we were out walking I plucked a plant to see if I could tell what it was --  I couldn't,  I just got roots.  (My apologies little plant!)   Last week, when we were out walking the dogs, we were surprised to find that finally, the farmer was plowing the field and gathering up his crop of sugar beets.  All spring and all summer we watched the sugar beet plants grow from tiny little shoots to huge bush type plants.  The field was a blanket of solid deep dark rich green.  When the summer was winding down in August, we couldn't understand why the field had not yet been harvested.  When September hit, we thought for sure the farmer would begin harvesting.  Nope!  October came and with it, chillier weather, surely now the farmer will harvest.  Nope!  It wasn't until the 3rd week in October that the farmer finally revved up his tractor and called in the big trucks to harvest his crop.  Day and night for 3 solid days he and his crew worked.   The machines they used looked ferocious - shiny wheels of sharp steel churning and turning - loosening the soil and pulling up the sugar beets.  The smooth flow of their system was like a well choreographed dance.  The giant tractor digger (I didn't know what it was really called, I just made that up.) moved slowly along the field digging up and spitting out the sugar beets into the tummy of its partner the sleek white dump truck that was waltzing along by the tractors side.  Once its tummy was full the dump truck sped off to unload and a new fresh dump truck took its place with precision and exact timing. Absolutely fascinating.  We watched for over 45 minutes so entranced were we in the Farmers Beet Harvest Dance.

Upon further research we learned that the timing for harvesting sugar beets must be perfect.   The farmer has to pay attention to the weather and to the temperature and the conditions in order to know when exactly it is time to harvest his beets.   He has to be prepared to go at it at the first sign of readiness.   Harvesting sugar beets begins with the first frost.  The day of the first frost that farmer must be prepared to harvest or all is lost.  And once harvested the sugar beets must be protected to prevent them from deteriorating before they can be delivered to the factory.  Such an amazing process and it is all centered on timing.   (By the way - I also learned that the "giant tractor digger" is actually called a beet harvester.)

I tell you this story of the Sugar Beets because it made me think of how precise and exact God's timing is as well as  how precise our timing must be in order that we do not miss a blessing.

In Hosea 10:12 God's Word declares, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers righteousness on you."

It is time to sow the things of God in our lives and the lives of others.
It is time to reap the fruit of His unfailing love.
It is time to plow through the things that prevent us from being and doing all God has planned for us.
It is time to seek the Lord with all our heart.
It is time to be prepared...
Until - in His time - He comes and showers righteousness on us.
Until - in His time - we receive His blessing.
Until - in His time - He comes again!

   

Gather, Scatter, Matter

Gather, Scatter, Matter.  3 little words that define life.

I first heard these words put together at a church meeting.  Leadership was sharing and encouraging the folks that come to the church to commit to partnering with the church by gathering regularly, scattering by engaging in the community inside and outside of the church and making a difference (mattering) by using our God-given time, treasure and talents through service, generosity and finances - again inside and outside of the church. This is a scriptural concept and not something that is new.  I had just never heard it summed up in this way and wrapped up in a nice neat package. Thank You, church!
              Gather: Hebrews 10:23-25     Scatter: Acts 2:42-47     Matter: Ephesians 4:1-16

As I thought about the concept of Gather, Scatter, Matter I saw so much more than just how this can apply to church life.  This concept applies to our daily lives as well.  Think about it...family life is all about Gather, Scatter, Matter.  As parents we gather our kids around the dinner table or we pile them all in the car to go on vacation.  Then when they are grown they scatter - going off to college, getting married, getting jobs and hopefully if we have done our job as a parent right, we have made a positive impact on their life and what we have done as a parent mattered.  And we see each child in turn gather, scatter and matter in their personal life, at their workplace and in the scope of their own little family as well as wherever they attend church.

In our home, when our children were growing up, we sat at the dinner table every evening.  This was a time of regrouping and reconnecting, touching base with each child.  This was our gathering time. It wasn't always pretty...there was spilt milk, and lap chops (that is our term for when a child cuts his or her meat and it lands in his or her lap - I use no names to protect the not so innocent!) and there were disagreements - "Mo-om he's looking at me!!!"  "Mo-om she is sitting too close!!!"  Sigh!!!  But I wouldn't exchange a moment of it for all the coffee at Dutch Bros. because there was also laughter and sweet times.  We would hear about how one brother stuck up for another brother.  Or how our boys were watching out for their little sister. We would hear about field trips and what they learned. We would hear about who likes who and all that the boy/girl drama.  We would hear about what happened when our children sang at the old folks home or served meals to the needy with the boy scouts.  We saw them scattering and making a difference (mattering) in the lives of each other and the lives of people outside our family.

In Matthew 13: 4-9, Jesus told a parable of a farmer who scattered seeds. The farmer first has to gather his seeds, then he can scatter them.  But once scattered, only some of the seeds landed on good soil - only some of the seeds mattered.  In verses 18 - 23 of that same chapter, Jesus explains the parable. What I see is that if the farmer never gathered or scattered, none of the seeds would have mattered.

Gather, Scatter, Matter are intertwined.  But it starts with Gathering.  Whether you gather at the dinner table, gather via Face time, gather with a group of friends or gather in the church, that's where it starts.

For once you Gather, seeds of life and love will be Scattered and it will Matter.


"The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God's Word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!" Matthew 13: 23