The Harvest

As a boy I recall a lot of our extended family came together  to reap the oats my father had planted.   The entire family had bought a thresher machine which  would separate the grain from the straw or chaff and shoot the chaff out of this long shoot (it reminded me of a dinosaur with the extended neck on it) and leave this huge pile of straw that we’d climb to the top and roll down !  The oats would be channeled out of another receptacle on the contraption and bagged for feed for the livestock for the next year.  The harvest or reaping season was a fun time for us kids and hard yet rewarding for the grownups !

My wife and I had dinner the other night with a very nice young man.  He grew up at our church, was saved at an early age and has been a faithful member with his family for nearly twenty years now !  We chatted about his plans once he graduates high school and it was so nice to hear him wanting to do what God wants.   In contrast, I’ve seen many other kids come and go who have ended up with a lot of heartaches they have created for themselves. Or their parents have allowed them to get onto a poor path by a lack of biblical obedience and guidance.  Today, it’s often the parents doing for their children what the children want, so the child becomes the rule rather than God’s Word being their standard.   But what we all enjoyed the other night was when a family typically chooses the right path: the blessing of being able to see a young man being perfected by God’s grace !!

What path are you really on?  Where will you be in five years? or ten?   And the right path at times isn’t easy but it’s very, very rewarding !  And it all is so basic when you think about it. Making sure you are saved, plugging into a good Bible preaching church, being staunchly committed to it in your attendance and service. Reading and heeding the Bible.  Many are the times this young man was seen cleaning the church with his family, ushering, helping with the midweek kids program, etc.     Yet that’s not the testimony of many believers who want to live life as they please and serve God on their terms, but those are the ones who will not reap the rewards in the end and sadly some will end up shipwreck !

So you may be one of those who is like this young man, you have been patiently serving when others won’t so you have picked up slack for them, you faithfully attend your church, you watched others play around with sin while you strove to do right.  But you are weary, you look at others who aren’t serving God and they seem to be doing fine.  You strive to sacrifice for the Lord’s work and give and give of your time, tithes, and talents – remember the words of the great apostle Paul to the Galatians: “And let us not be weary in well doing  for in due season we SHALL reap, if we  faint not”  (6:9).  Don’t faint,  God is perfecting you and will use you to be a blessing to others and you will reap !!  And this harvest will endure.