Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Our leadership group discussed a devotion called, “The Field” written by Bishop Schnase.

We were asked to imagine ourselves receiving the gift of a field no longer used for farming. Imagine being expected to produce a harvest on that barren field. What would you do?

• First, seek to learn all you can.

• Then work to prepare the ground.

• There is a time for sowing seeds.

• Followed by many, many hours of feeding and weeding.

• The results are inconsistent at first as you learn through trial and error.

• Over time, you experience the joy of being a witness to God’s harvest.

Schnase then writes, “These metaphors describe our souls. We’ve each been given a field. Our personal work is difficult and lifelong, the risks are many and fruitfulness is expected. How do we till and re-till the soil, plant the right seeds, protect against the weeds and pests and offer fruit pleasing to our Lord? God’s is a spirit of assurance, of vision, of sustenance, a present help in trouble. We do not garden alone. God is the Lord of the harvest.”

These metaphors could also describe our churches seeking direction amidst the crisis of COVID-19. How we are planting and harvesting the souls given to us within our community.

• First, seek to learn all you can.

• Then work to prepare the ground.

• There is a time for sowing seeds.

• Followed by many, many hours of feeding and weeding.

• The results are inconsistent at first as you learn through trial and error.

• Over time, you experience the joy of being a witness to God’s harvest.

The Apostle Paul writes about farming, “Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God! — harvests a crop of weeds. All he will have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8)

We have been given a field. “What a person plants, he will harvest.” If we plant selfishness, ignore the needs of others, ignore God? We will harvest weeds. If we plant in response to God and allow God’s Spirit to work within us. We will harvest a beautiful crop: eternal life.

“Contrary to popular opinion, life does not get better by chance, life gets better by change. And this change always takes place inside; it is the change of thought that creates the better life.” — Kerry Randall

Life does not get better by chance; life gets better by change. As the pandemic rages on, God calls on us as individuals and as the church to respond.

So, you and I and our churches have been given a field.

• First, seek to learn all you can.

• Then work to prepare the ground.

• There is a time for sowing seeds.

• Followed by many, many hours of feeding and weeding.

• The results are inconsistent at first as you learn through trial and error.

But, over time you experience the joy of being a witness to God’s harvest.

REV. LARRY E. DAVIES can be reached at larrydavies@vaumc.org.