Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
–Robert Louis Stevenson

After reading these words from Stevenson this morning I could easily see them being words I’d want to put above my door so I would always see them. It is easy for me, in my narrow-minded view, to look and appreciate the events and opportunities that bring immediate and visible return. When I send out an email to one person, I want to judge its effectiveness by the response. When I am in conversation, the same thing. “What do I get for my efforts” seems to be my bottom line far too often. I think it’s about acknowledgement.

One of the most valuable and eternal lessons sending out these emails has done, and is doing for me, is to show me that immediate feedback is not what it’s all about. It’s about the seeds my emails plant. When I send out an email to you all, near and dear as you all are, part of me wants to gauge whether it has value or not by whether I get any emails back. Yet, for me, when I have the opportunity to meet with people, they nearly always tell me in person how much they value the emails. And the stories they share in person are so powerful, ones I’m sure where the power would not come through in word. So I know God is using my efforts, and it is a continual letting go and allowing God do His work apart from my knowing about everything He does with the seeds I put out there. It’s about letting God be God in His infinite wisdom and power.

All that said, I know each of us face challenges and difficulties, often on an hourly or daily basis. But I have no doubt in each challenge there are seeds planted which will lead to opportunities to grow closer to Him and to the ones we love. When I read something like the Beautitudes in Matthew this is so apparent to me. Life isn’t about the “now” it’s about the “then” and in my life and in this culture so many things point only to the now. God is always at work and 99.9% of His work we don’t see or realize until it produces fruit. I know as I read the first verses in Matthew 5 that when I get to verses 11 and 12 it talks about persecution, but I think the phrase “great is your reward in Heaven” summaries the verses before.

Notice in the Beatitudes all the “will be” lines. But perhaps most powerful is verse twelve –
“Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven” – Matthew 5:12

Maybe sharing these words from Jeremiah will be helpful as well, demonstrating again how God’s plans are far beyond what I see when I look to my immediate harvest.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11

Hope and a future! Seedlings.