The Law of the Harvest

Over 100 years ago an unknown author wrote a fascinating children’s book with the interesting title of “The Chance World.” It was about a make believe world in which everything happened by chance. Think about it; the sun might come up in the morning, or maybe not. If a person jumped up in the air they might come right back down or they might just keep on going. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, water might freeze, and then later today it might boil. There was really no way of knowing what was going to happen beforehand.

It sounds kind of fun and funny, but really, what if you couldn’t rely on principles like gravity, light, electricity, or temperature. In this chance world, if a farmer planted a field of wheat, it might come up as wheat or it might come up as tomatoes or pumpkins or poison ivy. What happened yesterday or an hour ago would be no indication of what may happen tomorrow or even five minutes from now. Without the laws of nature, life would basically be chaos.

Well, I’m happy to say that we don’t live in such a chance world. We live in a world of order, governed by laws. A farmer, to have a successful harvest, must work in harmony with these laws by having good seed, fertile soil, and sufficient moisture. If they violate these laws they may expect failure. This is known as the Law of The Harvest, which states that you reap what you sow. If you sow generously, you reap generously, but if you sow sparingly, yep, you reap sparingly. It’s a law you can count on, just like we can rely water freezing at 32 degrees and boiling at 212 degrees. The sun comes up in the morning, even if behind clouds, and what goes up must come down because of the forces of gravity.

This Law of the Harvest, sowing and reaping, applies in virtually every area of life, be it exercise, finance, health, or relationships. I might point out that “Good Intentions” won’t get you too far either. Some people try to fake it or take shortcuts. I saw a young man in his thirties on a reality TV show called “Botched” that admitted to having about 132 separate surgical procedures. His face lacked expression like a mask. Instead of regular exercise for a healthy body, he had implants in his biceps, triceps, pectorals, calves, and buttocks. He looked like he had been working-out for years, but the fake muscles were all for show, they weren’t real, and were basically non-functional.

It’s no secret that many people in America live beyond their means, committing slow financial suicide with their credit card. I just heard a report on the radio stating that three quarters of the people of retirement age have less than $30K dollars in savings. Not exactly what makes for carefree, fun-filled golden years. It is a tough lesson learned too late that you rarely can harvest what you haven’t sown. The Law of the Harvest doesn’t really lend itself to cramming the night before, like we could do for a quiz in school.

It’s well documented that sowing a poor diet makes for a poor health harvest. I have a neighbor who is a little older than I am, who has basically eaten the standard American diet for his whole life. He’s done quite well until about 4 weeks ago, when he started feeling a little off. In the time since, he has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, suffered a heart attack, undergone a quadruple bypass, experienced a stroke, had a case of shingles, experienced episodes of dizziness, and now has pneumonia. I admit that this is an extreme example of a terrible harvest following years of the wrong kind of sowing. He’s fighting back, but it’s really tough, and now he is basically forced to eat the way he should have been all these years.

Just a word about one of the most important harvests of all. Good and lasting relationships don’t just happen. They take love, time, effort, sacrifice, patience, lots of patience, respect, and people that truly want to be together. It’s worth fighting for.

Let me finish with a statement attributed to the Nike Company; “Quit making excuses, putting it off, complaining about it, dreaming about it, whining about it, crying about it, believing you can’t, worrying if you can, waiting until you’re older, skinnier, richer, braver, or all around better. Suck it up, hold on tight, say a prayer, make a plan, and Just Do It!” In other words, want a great harvest, get sowing.