The Seven Laws of the Harvest

Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA.

A friend I know recently told me, "You are not in the product-selling business. You are in the seed-planting business." And he was/is right. But I don't always feel that way.

All farmers want to see a harvest. To see the fruits of their labor. The same thing is true for writers. Authors of books and novels also look forward to harvest. But there are laws to the harvest. As immutable as gravity.

Not that long ago, Phil Morgan, our pastor at Brookfield First Assembly of God church, shared a teaching on The Seven Laws of the Harvest. Laws that all of us should keep in mind.

1.      We reap only what has been sown. God’s blessings come to all of us, but we need to plant seeds if we wish to see a harvest. If we don’t take time to plan for the future, we should not expect a harvest.

2.      We reap the same in-kind as we sow. Apple seeds produce apples. That is a law. There is no alternative. We cannot sow lies and expect to find truth. We cannot sow to the flesh and expect spiritual results.

3.      We reap in a different season than we sow. Harvest takes time. No seed grows immediately to fruit. Paul writes in Galatians that, “we reap in due season.” We reap if we wait patiently and do not lose heart. Harvest only comes in harvest season.

4.      We reap more than we sow. Plant one kernel of corn and it can produce one corn stalk. On that corn stalk will be six or seven ears of corn. Hundreds of kernels on each ear of corn. Plant hundreds of kernels of corn . . . The result of seed planting is exponential growth.

5.      We reap in proportion to what we sow. Paul writes, “If we sow sparingly, we reap sparingly.” We can’t plant one apple seed and expect to find an apple orchard.

6.      We reap the full harvest only if we persevere. A farmer waits. He doesn’t plant seed one day and go out to the field and expect to find fruit the next day. Seed planting requires patience. And some seed takes longer to come to fruit than others.

7.      We can’t do anything about last year’s harvest. That day is gone. That time is over. But, we can sow for seasons to come. A seed planter needs to be hopeful.

There is another law of the harvest. Good seed in good soil produces good fruit. But only if the seed is cared for—if it is watered regularly; gets as much sunlight as necessary; if the soil is weeded religiously; if the crop is pruned and harvested on time.

I am not in the product-selling business. I’m in the seed-planting business. Many of us are in the seed-planting business, even though we may not know it. We must be faithful sowers if we hope to see a harvest. And we must be patient if we hope to see fruit.

Fruit will come. It's a law.