During these troubled times, many people are facing trials and hardships. While this season of life may be difficult and painful, God promises to use it for your good. To do the study The Blessing of Affliction, just click on the link!

Apples and Grapes by Boaz Yiftach

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Do you know that it is God’s will for you to be used greatly for His kingdom? God has prepared in advance works that only you can do. It doesn’t matter your age or stage, God is working to bring a great harvest from your life!

Ready to discover more about your harvest? Take some time to find out how God wants to use you now and in the future. To do the the Harvest study, please click on the link!

Through my adult years, I’ve developed a love for gardening. There’s just something about watching a bare plot of grass transform into a flower-filled haven, alive with fluttering butterflies, birds and bees. Or you just can’t beat popping that first luscious cherry tomato still warm from the summer sun into your mouth.

When my children were little, I tried to get them interested in helping me tend the garden. They would plant a few seeds or help me transplant tender young plants into the ground for a few minutes, but soon their backs would hurt or they would be hot or their attention would wander to a more thrilling activity. And weeding? I never had any willing participants when it was time to take back control of the
garden from invaders! Even at harvest time, they weren’t too enthused to help gather the vegetables. Biting chiggers, mosquitos and “itchy grass”–from all the weeds!–sent them slinking off to more fun activities. But, they were sure happy to help eat our tomatoes or beans or lettuce.

You know, I guess we adults aren’t that much different than kids when it comes to our “spiritual crops.” Most of us love to celebrate when a hard-fought spiritual victory has been won–a drug addiction beaten, a troublesome teen sees the light, a friend decides to follow Christ, or a cancer goes into remission. But I wonder, how many more victories could we be a part of if we were willing to “sow more seeds, pick more weeds and water the crops”?

Our verse from Genesis today tells us that there is a seedtime and a harvesttime. I think the time part can be a problem for all of us. It takes time and effort to hold someone accountable for an addiction, to stick by a teenager who is in “rebel-mode,” to meet at the inner-city center and develop relationships with the kids, or to hold someone’s hand while they’re throwing up from chemo. It’s hard, it’s messy and tough love isn’t a lot of fun. But, isn’t that what Jesus calls us to? Being there in the seedtime will increase the chance that we’ll get to see some harvests. Sometimes we plant a seed that someone else gets to harvest, or we get to harvest the seed that someone else planted! However God works it out, let’s think about planting a seed in a life today.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for the times of sowing and harvesting that make up the cycle of life. Show us where you want us to sow some seeds this month. Amen.

“While the earth remains Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat,Winter and summer,

And day and night

Shall not cease.”

Genesis 8:22

Growing Pains

by

Jane VanOsdol

When I was growing up, I remember that frequently at night my sister Mary would run to our mom, crying because her legs ached so badly. Mom would rub her legs and soothe her by saying that it was just “growing pains” that hurt so badly. While it didn’t make her legs stop hurting, it helped to know that there was something good that would be coming out of this painful process.

I think that we can also get growing painsin our spiritual lives too. Last month, we talked about new beginnings. Well, when we take that step of faith and begin a new process in our lives, somewhere in the process we experience growing pains. We may begin to question our decision. “What was I thinking?” we moan. “I’m not nearly smart enough to do this.” Or, “Why did I join the prayer ministry? My prayers are not nearly as eloquent as John’s are.” Maybe two weeks into our commitment to get up 30 minutes earlier to pray, we are overcome by fatigue and discouragement.

First of all, this is normal. The enemy does not want us making any headway into our spiritual lives, and he will throw obstacles along our path. However, this is also the time that God calls us to grow up. We need to put aside childish ways and thinking and persevere in that commitment, with the assurance that God will bless this new direction in our lives. Our growing pains will produce a harvest in our prayer lives.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you that you bring growth out of the painful processes in our lives. May we no longer be like children, but grow up in all things into You. Amen.

Copyright 2009                            Jane VanOsdol                All Rights Reserved