Harvest Time

I'm still in Matthew, just taking my time and enjoying the book. I was recently in Chapter Thirteen reading the parable of the sower, and though I've read it many times, something new (at least to me) jumped out. That's why I love reading and rereading the Bible because God always has something fresh to say to us even in passages we're incredibly familiar with:)

Twice in this parable Jesus talks about when the seed falls on good soil it will yield a crop. And oh, do I want to have good soil so that something can grow in me! Something that reaches others and points straight to Jesus. What's so interesting to me is that Jesus goes on to talk about the size of the crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

Those are the words that stopped me this time around. You see, we all have potential to bear fruit. To haul in a harvest for Christ. We all were born with a purpose woven uniquely into us. But not all of us were created to have the same reach. And that's okay! In fact, that's exactly God's design. Unfortunately, in this day and age we play the comparison game all too often. We look to the side and see someone else's reach, the size of the platform they're speaking from, the diameter of their circle of influence; and we think if it's larger than ours then what they've been called to do is vastly more important.

But look closely, friends. Never in this parable does Jesus say the size of the crop matters. No. In fact the entire parable is about ensuring you have good soil so that the seed will grow and you will produce a harvest. That's where the importance lies. Jesus tosses in those sizes to ensure we know and can be confident in the fact that the size of my harvest is going to be different than the size of yours. He doesn't want us so caught up in comparing that we stop producing, so he lays it all out there for us in no uncertain terms. We simply need to remember it:)