As I write this, I'm reminded of one thing on my “to do list”, and that is put away my garden. I've got tomatoes still on the vine and all kinds of peppers to pick, but mostly just weeds are left. It's a sad excuse for a garden really. I remember both my grandfathers' gardens….now those were gardens. Talk about a harvest. I remember asking my grandfather Bailey how he grew such big tomatoes. He said, “Things just do a lot better when they're grown God's way.” That applies to a lot more than tomatoes. In fact, it may explain why the outcome you've been getting isn't what you'd been hoping for.
God addresses the difference between His way and my way in Isaiah 50:10-11
“Who out there fears God, actually listens to the voice of his servant. For anyone out there who doesn't know where they're going, anyone groping in the dark, here's what: Trust in God. Lean on your God!
But if all you're after is making trouble, playing with fire, go ahead and see where it gets you. Set your fires, stir people up, blow on the flames, but don't expect me to just stand there and watch. I'll hold your feet to those flames.”
Ouch! The picture here isn't about how to grow a great harvest, but how to handle the dark times, the confusing times, the tough times, but the principle is the same. Now one way you can handle that is to relax and rely on God to make things happen. The other is to start making your own light sources…to try to make it happen yourself.
Now for us control freaks, that is one of the greatest dangers in our life, one of the greatest sources of pain and frustration and failure. We can't wait for God's timing. We can't trust God to get it done. He might need a little help from us. We have to fall back on our intelligence, our persuasion and our planning, our schemes, our skill, our effort. God sternly reminds us where trying to force it will leave us; with our feet to the flames!
The poet Whittier said, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, tis the saddest of these, it might have been.” I wonder if that will be the epitaph over your life as you review it with Jesus in Heaven. “What might have been” If only you had let go of the wheel, if only you had relinquished control, if only you had waited for God to do it His way. But all you got instead was what you could do instead of the much bigger thing God could do.
Remember those tomatoes. When YOU try to make things grow your way in your place, the harvest is small. But when you let God grow it His way in His place in His time, you're going to be amazed with the size of the harvest!
It's Harvest Time. |
