Tilling the Ground

So we're working on a few home improvement projects around our house. It keeps snowballing too! Hubby and I tend to be a bit OCD, so having things all over the place tends to make us feel a bit out of control, but this weekend I looked around and realized we had to have the mess if we were ever going to enjoy the finished project.

Isn't that true about life? It made me think of all the verses about planting, watering, and harvesting. There's one specific step that came to mind as I was reading these; tilling. Breaking up the ground. It's hard work. It causes a mess. It's destructive...but with a purpose. And I see that in our lives and relationships at times.

Sometimes in life we get to plant seeds in others; we're there but for a moment, dropping into their lives something that will begin to germinate. Other times we get to water; be the encouragement, the laughter, simply the fun and love in their lives. Still at different times we get to reap the harvest; walk them into a relationship with the Lord. Oh the pure excitement and joy! But there's one other step that none of us really like. It's when we're the tillers. Our role is to break up that ground, be the friction, cause disruption. No, not purposefully out of spite, but for whatever reason it's the role you play in someone's life in that moment.

You're causing a mess so that God can clean it up.

And let me be clear, I've been on both ends of this tilling. That's because for God to do a work sometimes he needs to break things in us first, and he often uses others to do this. But he never leaves things broken. He smooths it over and cleans it up.

Where are you at today? Planting, watering, harvesting, or tilling? Wherever it is remember, God is working his best in your life. Even when it doesn't look it, even when things around you are a mess, he's bringing order smack dab into the middle of it. Wait for it:)