The things that are happening to us now, are the harvest of thoughts and actions sown in the past. Today's thoughts and actions are seeds being sown for a future harvest.

Since all of us are now reaping what we once sowed, and sowing what yonder we will reap, it is well that we know the principles of sowing and reaping.

Sowing and reaping is an almost perfect analogy of life. We can hardly do better than to see life as a process of sowing seed, and reaping a harvest. We can hardly do better than to take care how we sow.

Sowing in Faith

Such is a seed, however, that it requires a measure of faith and insight. In a handful of small shrivelled seed is the potential to feed you for a season, and thereafter the world for centuries. It is not an easy thing to believe that amazing potential.

Likewise, figurative seed demands a measure of faith and insight. It is hard to be convinced that today's few words, thoughts, and actions, have the potential to affect our future enormously.

There are various ways of looking at sowing and reaping. Let's look at the different principles now...

You May Sow What Another Reaps

John 4:37-38

Anyone who receives an inheritance knows what it means to reap what another has sown.

Your local church is another example. You enjoy membership in it because a few far-sighted souls once began to assemble, sowing what you now reap.

Another example shows the dark side of the principle: a little child dies of AIDS. The child has reaped what another sowed.

What are you sowing today, that someone else will reap in days to come?

You May Sow Wheat and Reap Thorns

Jeremiah 12:13

What you sow, your enemy may destroy. Where good seed was sown, something bad may grow.

Parents might do everything possible to bring up children well, yet one child falls into bad company and becomes a criminal.

Those who have sown good seed in your local church are mindful of how ready the enemy is to destroy their labour and its fruits, and to leave them with a harvest of thorns.

You May Sow the Wind and Reap the Whirlwind

Hosea 8:7

A wife or husband thinks that a little flirtation is harmless, only to find it develops into a shattering of lives and relationships. We may reap more than we dreamed of from the seed we sow.

This also has its bright side: your small labour of love, seemingly such a small seed, might produce an unimagined harvest of good. You never know.

You Will Reap What You Sow

Galatians 6:7-8

No seed can produce except after its own kind. If we sow evil, we reap evil. You cannot sow to the flesh and reap from the Spirit. You cannot sow seeds of digression and reap true discipleship.

Of course the seed sown is not the harvest reaped. For example, flirting is not fornicating. But one grows out of the other, and therefore we must warn against the one whilst not accusing of the other.

You Reap Sparingly if You Sow Sparingly

2Corinthians 9:6

The more good we sow, the more good we reap. Let us be generous and bountiful in sowing good seed.

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