I just wanted to share a few thoughts from a personal Bible study I am going through right now by Beth Moore. Story first -- then the take-home point. So hang on! Beth Moore relayed a story about how she and her husband went to visit the country of Angola to do relief work. They went to a rural village to hand out food to some extremely malnourished people. She writes,
"As we stood, trying to absorb the sights and smells of living death, our new friend, Isak Pretorius said, 'One of the most frustrating things is that in villages where they receive seed, they often eat the seed rather than planting it and bringing forth the harvest.' I couldn't get the statement out of my mind and suddenly had an answer to the questions I most often ask God: Why do some people see the results of the Word and others don't? Why do some study the Word of God yet remain in their captivity? Some just eat the seed and never sow it for a harvest.
Sometimes we don't even realize the difference. We'll think we accepted the teaching because we were so moved by it. But you see, the seed of God's Word can fill our stomachs and give us immediate satisfaction and still not produce a harvest - that's when we eat it but don't sow it."
And this is the part that hit home for me:
"We can 'Amen!' the pastor as he preaches sacrificial love. We can walk to the car and comment on the great sermon he gave, drive home, and march in as mean and cold as the person who pulled out of the driveway. We decide surely God did not mean us to apply His truth to our reality because He knows how difficult this or that person to love...Then we charge God with unfaithfulness when we don't get the harvest He promised. We have to get down on our knees in the hardship of our circumstances and apply God's Word to the most difficult places, believing God will bring a harvest. Forgiving others, for instance, is a beautiful theology but a difficult reality. Those who apply it have a harvest for the rest of their lives. We were meant to eat from the sheaves, not from the seeds."**
How many times have I 'amened' the preacher, then gone home and done nothing about it? Applying God's Word can be hard. For example, the take-home points from yesterday's sermon at my church on humility and having a captive will are hard - if applied. But oh the joy when, with obedience, trust, and time, we reap a bountiful harvest!
"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience." Luke 8:11,15
"Though one goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he will surely come back with shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves." Psalm 126:6
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9
**From "Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent" by Beth Moore, (c) 2007
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