Weekend Words

 From Beside the Still Waters...

Plowing, Sowing, Threshing - Read Isaiah 28:23-29, Hebrews 12:5-17

"But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." - Job 23:10

Plowing, sowing, and threshing are common agricultural terms that appear many times in the Bible.  Isaiah used these words for analogies to God's disciplines in our lives.  

Plowing (verse 24).  The purpose of plowing is to break up the soil.  Once the plowing is finished, does the farmer turn around and keep on plowing?  No, it is a means to an end.  When the end is achieved, his plowing ceases.  For many years the plowing of Egyptian tyranny ripped through the soil of the Hebrew nation, but in it God saw the potential of a rich harvest.  God is discerning in the duration of our disciplines.  He will not plow longer than necessary.

Sowing (verse 25).  After the plowing is done, the ground is prepared ("made plain").  It is then that God can sow the seed.  The farmer calculates what will bring the greatest returns by planting high-quality seed that is best suited for the soil.  God regards our lives as seed plots for eternity.  He pays close attention not only to the soil but also to the seed He sows.  His choices are always sovereignly correct.

Threshing (verses 27-29).  The farmer adapts his threshing technique according to the nature of the harvested grain.  God uses similar discretion and moderation in our lives to produce the results He desires.  His object in threshing is not to crush or destroy, but to purify and preserve.

The chastening of the Lord is often wrought with pain.  While we would not choose these trials, God sends then to perfect and purify us, and to produce fruit in our character that is worth more than gold.  This harvest of peace follows if we allow ourselves to be disciplined by God's plowing, sowing, and threshing.

Jonathon Kropf - Halsey, OR

"Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties." - Charles Spurgeon

From In Green Pastures - J R Miller...

Not In Vain in the Lord

We must not measure by an earthly standard in testing the failure or success of life.  There are lives which the world crowns as successful, but which heaven rates as failures.  Then there are others over which men drop a tear of pity, but which in God's sight are put down as noble successes.  

All earnest Christians do many things which they hope will prove blessings to others, which yet in the end seem to fail altogether of good result.  But we do not know what good may yet come out of our true work that has appeared to fail.  "Your labor is not in vain in the Lord."  It may not show any result at once, but somewhere, sometime, there will be blessing from everything that is done truly for Christ.  

The old water-wheel runs around and around outside the mill.  It seems to be accomplishing nothing, but the shaft goes through the wall and turns the machinery inside, making flour to feed the hunger of many or driving spindles and weaving beautiful fabrics.  Our lives may seem, with all their activities, to be leaving no results, but they reach into the unseen; and who knows what blessings they become, what impressions they leave on other lives and in eternity?