Seedtime and Harvest

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

Genesis 8:22

I’ve shared my gardening woes with you before. I am terrible at gardening. I want to be good at it and believe me, I’ve tried, but I have massively failed every time I’ve attempted to grow anything.

Quite honestly, this also feels like a metaphor for my life at times. Sometimes it seems like everything I touch fails. I sow what I think are good seeds, and I water them devotedly, but nothing comes from them.

In gardening and in many of life’s circumstances, I’m often tempted to throw in the towel. Why even bother trying? I keep spending time and money on things that never bear fruit. Has it all been a waste? I get frustrated, disappointed, and discouraged.

But with gardening and with life, somehow the tiniest voice of hope always remains, urging me to try again. Maybe this time you’ll get a good crop of jalapeños. Maybe this time the friendship will last a lifetime. Maybe this time when you pray, you’ll see the miracle.

That’s the voice that motivated me to try one more time with an herb garden.

I had rescued an expired herb garden kit from entering the trash a year or so ago. Its expiration date had long since passed, and I figured there was pretty much no hope of seeing anything grow, but I couldn’t help but try. I didn’t want to waste the kit, and there was nothing to lose but time and water.

I soaked the dried-up soil according to the package directions, sowed the seeds for basil, cilantro, and thyme (poorly, I might add – I had no idea what I was doing!), and set the metal tin near a window. The instructions informed me that it would take at least two weeks for any seeds to peek through. I wasn’t even sure how often I should be watering these plants and the directions didn’t specify, so I guessed on everything, Google confirmed I had done everything wrong, and, needless to say, my expectations weren’t too high. But I was using what I had, and I had given it my best effort.

Imagine my surprise when, a week later, tiny green leaves had appeared! Against all odds and even ahead of schedule, my herb garden was growing!

Seemingly overnight, the leaves multiplied. Every time I’d look at my little garden, more plants had appeared. It’s only been about a month since I planted the tiny seeds, and I’m already sprinkling fresh cilantro on my meals. I can hardly believe it!

I think my little garden is a great reminder of how the harvest always comes when we continue to faithfully sow. Even when a situation appears to have reached its expiration date, sometimes God can still surprise us and bring the harvest ahead of schedule…rather, on his schedule, AKA right on time.

It’s a new season. Things may be crazy in the world, plans and promises may seem to be on hold, and we may be struggling to see what God is doing right now. But new life is springing up, even in impossible places! With my black thumb and expired garden kit, seeing a harvest should’ve been virtually impossible. Yet the harvest came!

God is the God of the impossible. His resources are greater than ours, his timing is better than ours, and he is in control. When he says go, it’s go-time!

Don’t give up on the seeds you have sowed. When you least expect it, you may see the harvest you’ve been waiting for.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19