Their harvest is determined by what they do while they’re waiting. Then maintaining – taking care of equipment, and other types of administration.Weeding carefully – removing any obstacles to fruitfulness without damaging the harvest itself.Sowing faithfully (you can’t harvest what you don’t plant).That may require fertilizing, irrigating, or even improving the seed. Creating an environment where the life in the seed can be nurtured.So if the farmer only spends about 3.8% of his calendar gathering up the harvest, what does he do during the waiting season? And just like that, the months or years of waiting are over. But often when the opportunities arrive, they require decisive action and quick response. I have known people who waited months and years for the Lord to open opportunities to serve in a particular capacity, or to serve in a particular area. And if it wasn’t for the photographers and cake decorators, the whole thing would be over in 15 minutes. I know people who spent years dreaming of their wedding day. And he spends two weeks – 3.8% of his calendar – gathering up the harvest to collect it.ĭraw the parallel to the thing(s) you are waiting so desperately for. This man gets one paycheck a year, essentially. My first question to this man who, at last count, farms 7,000 acres: How much time in a year do you actually spend harvesting cotton? Obviously, the Lord wanted me to learn something about waiting on Him from the farmer, so I figured the best way to learn is to go straight to the source. I got so intrigued about this verse, and the waiting season I was in, I called one of those afore-mentioned farmers and took him to lunch. And believe me, you won’t find a busier bunch. My neighbors know a thing or two about waiting on a harvest. I happen to live in the middle of the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world. You too be patient strengthen your hearts…” (James 5:7-8). “The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. And when I read this during a particularly hard waiting season, it really got my attention: In the Bible, James offers a different idea. We think of waiting as the kind of thing you do in a bureaucrat’s line or a doctor’s office (now you know why they call them “patients”). One of the problems we have with waiting is that we don’t know how. (In theory, of course… not that I have ever actually gotten so impatient that somebody in a uniform decided it was time to have a little chat… but I’m sure you know somebody like that.) That’s why, in the previous post, I mentioned that it’s easy to get into trouble when we’re in those waiting seasons. News flash! As a culture, we don’t wait well.
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