Seedtime & Harvest

When my son was in college, summer meant his driving combines. First came pea harvest and then came wheat harvest. Peas are harvested during the day and during the night and his was usually a night shift. He'd come home near daybreak almost unrecognizable and smelling a bit odd. If you've ever smelled the pea sewage they feed livestock, you know what I mean. Wheat harvest was only a bit better. The wheat combine had an enclosed cab but the field dust still made its way in. No wonder. In rural areas this time of the year, you can just about tell where the wheat combines are by the dust clouds rising in the air.

 

This one's cloud is a bit mild. But a panoramic view would have revealed three combines working on the same field. Thankfully, on this trip, the only one we saw on the highway was traveling on a flatbed semi.

 

If you haven't already concluded, harvest is in full swing in SE Washington State. The fields are turning into spiky, short stubble. The grain is being loaded into trucks, driven to the elevators, and stored until it is reloaded on larger trucks or barges and shipped to processing plants.

 

The Lord has promised, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." (Genesis 8:22) His promises are sure. But where personal harvest is concerned, we have to be actively involved in the seedtime.

 

Our prayers are like seeds planted in our children's lives. Just like plants, sometimes the harvest comes quickly and sometimes it is long in waiting. But as long as we are actively involved in the seedtime, the harvest comes.

 

 

"Those who cry while they plant will joyfully sing while they harvest."

Psalm 126:5