I hope that you and your family had a Happy Easter! My church family and my blood family had a terrific day together. My sister and her daughter, my niece both have birthdays close to Easter so we had a big combination Easter/birthday dinner party that included food, presents, and lot of celebration. There is nothing like spending happy times with family.
With focus on Easter, I personally celebrate what God the Father did through His Son for me. Also, my mind goes to the biblical story of David and the way in which he was a picture of the principle of reaping and sowing. David was a man after God’s own heart. He was close to God and loved to worship God. David was greatly blessed and talented! He was a musician and a writer of beautiful lyrics. Being a beloved King, David lived a life of luxury.
Although David was close with God, he made some terribly bad choices in his life that caused him to reap great sorrow. This is a lesson to all of us that we are not above mistakes; therefore, we are not above negative consequences in our lives. Sometimes, we listen to our heads instead of listening to our hearts. This is dangerous because we live in a wicked world that does not lead us to making decisions that reflect God’s Spirit.
The law of reaping and sowing is something that applies to all parts of our lives. We know in agriculture that we only grow what we plant. When we plant zucchini seeds, we grow zucchini plants. We also know that one small seed can grow a huge plant that will produce many, many zucchini. It is something that takes time and care. We don’t get the zucchini quickly after we plant, we must wait for growing process to take place. Not only do we reap what we sow, we reap more than we sow and later than when we sow.
Decisions that we make in our lives reap consequences in our lives. Sometimes the consequences are more far reaching than just us and end up affecting the lives of others. No one is an island. Our lives are intertwined with those of our family and our friends. We don’t always get to see the effects of our decisions and we don’t always know if the circumstances of our lives have been affected by someone else. The best we can do is to try and be aware of our actions and use the type of judgment that the Bible teaches.
The principle of reaping and sowing is so simple that a child can understand. It is a “if this, then that” idea that can be taught to a child as parents help them shape their ability to make decisions about behavior. We tell a child, “If you touch the stove, you will get burned.” They learn that getting burned is painful and something to be avoided. Once they understand what it means to be burned or hurt, they want to keep it from happening again. This seems simple, but doesn’t always work.
Some children want to push the boundaries just like adults want to rationalize their behavior to allow for their own desires. David allowed himself to act on desires that he knew were wrong. Not only that, but one bad decision led to another bad decision that was even worse than the first. How often does this happen? It seems to be a common theme in today’s society. Everyone makes bad choices from time to time; but when one leads to another, the second is usually worse than the first. Trying to cover up a bad choice with another bad choice will only make the consequences worse. This is especially true when the reaping is significantly later than the sewing. Time has a way of growing the consequences like a zucchini vine grows zucchini. Once they start growing, you find that you have so many of them that you can’t use them all!
The reason we have stories of people’s lives in the Bible is so that we can learn from their mistakes. As we learn about David, we can understand that although he was close with God, he was still a human man who was capable of making mistakes. His mistakes didn’t change the fact that he was loved by God, but they did change the way that he was able to live his life on this earth.
It is the responsibility of each individual person to nurture their relationship with God. We have to keep in mind that our character is important and can spill into the lives of others. Those affects can be negative or positive. We are all challenged by life to stay on the right side. When we make mistakes or find ourselves in the path of someone else’s mistakes, we must remember that forgiveness is possible. Happy Easter!
Anne Stephens, Extension Agent for Fine Arts in Greenup County can be reached at 606-836-0201 or anne.stephens@uky.edu. Educational programs of Kentucky Cooperative Extension serve all people regardless of economic or social status and will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, marital status, genetic information, age, veteran status, or physical or mental disability.
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, KENTUCKY STATE UNIVERSITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, AND KENTUCKY COUNTIES, COOPERATING
