Yesterday I was reflecting on bearing fruit and today it seems I will be reflecting on planting seeds, or sowing. Here are a few verses from Paul's letter to the Galatians 6:7-10 NIV:
[7] "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. [8] Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. [9] Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. [10] Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."
There are several themes one could expand upon in these verses, but the one that jumped out right away was "doing good". Paul starts the section speaking about reaping and sowing (planting and harvesting) and concludes with "doing good", which is the sowing according to verse nine. What a simple and helpful attitude to have in our life, to make it our goal to "sow doing good"! In other words to do good is planting seeds!
Just to be clear, the word translated "good" here is a rich word with quite a few possible meanings. The Greek word is Kalos and it is defined as follows:
1) beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious, useful, suitable, commendable, admirable
a) beautiful to look at, shapely, magnificent
b) good, excellent in its nature and characteristics, and therefore well adapted to its ends
1. genuine, approved
2. precious
3. joined to names of men designated by their office, competent, able, such as one ought to be
4. praiseworthy, noble
c) beautiful by reason of purity of heart and life, and hence praiseworthy
1. morally good, noble
d) honourable, conferring honour
e) affecting the mind agreeably, comforting and confirming
The Greek word translated doing is Poieo and it is defined as to make, or produce.
Thus, we could conclude "doing good" means to make beautiful, excellent, precious and useful things with your time; to be about creating and producing things that worthy of praise, good to use, helpful to our minds, comforting, and encouraging! We want to sow a positive increase into the world around us! We want our lives to have a positive impact! We want to make things of beauty, encourage others in their beauty, honor others and be honorable ourselves.
I tend to be task oriented and this is pretty easy to define in my mind. I want to be able to look back at my day and see that in some way I have made a positive impact through my actions and words. I want to be lifting people up, encouraging others, speaking words of life, being kind, compassionate and loving.
Going back to the first verse quoted above, Paul says that a man reaps what he sows, and this is true in the spiritual as well as natural realms. If we sow goodness, we will reap goodness. If we sow to please the Holy Spirit, we will reap Eternal Life!
I was brought back to my reflection from yesterday, thinking about the different types of fruitfulness, different types of plants, vegetables, fruits and even trees that I was considering. In the last verse quoted above, Paul encourages us to not grow weary in doing good! I can see why he added that encouragement, because sowing seeds does not produce instant results. This summer, we planted some grass seeds and watered that area religiously for a couple of weeks before we saw any tiny grass shoots. It is the same way with pretty much any seeds, they take time to germinate, and grow. I think that is one reason we like to plant seedlings, or already started plants, as we don't want to sit and wait for the seeds to sprout. So as we look back at the different types of seed sown, some will take much longer to produce fruit, but all are worthy of being planted.
In the same way, when we are sowing goodness, we may not see any immediate fruit, and quite often no discernable response. We must not be deterred in continuing to sow good! We must not keep score, or start to sow judgement, after sowing goodness for a while and seeing no results. We must have faith that this is truth! That what we sow, we will reap!
I was just thinking about the story of Johnny Appleseed, and the positive impact his life would have produced. He saw almost none of the impact, for apple trees take several years to grow to the point of bearing fruit! However, he knew that if he planted apple seeds, ultimately apple trees would grow and produce apples. He had faith in the natural process. Paul is encouraging us to have the same faith in the spiritual reality. Sow goodness, don't wait for fruitfulness to be evident but continue on sowing goodness daily!
What a beautiful encouragement, "as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers!" Let us sow and sow and sow and sow! Let us not worry about seeing fruit, but rather trust in the truth of sowing and reaping. Apparently this doing good is sowing to please the Holy Spirit, and ultimately leads to Eternal Life. That is enough of a harvest for me!
Amen!
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