SCRIPTURE: I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 ESV
THOUGHT: A bare field after a busy harvest season is a beautiful thing. Just brown earth, sometimes resting under a glorious golden stubble of leftovers. And in the transition to winter it often shimmers with frost, giving the appearance of white, especially under a full moon. Part of the beauty is how much enjoyment I get from those ‘empty’ fields, now fodder for birds and other wildlife.
Our lives imitate nature in this way. Even in the starkest season of a Christian’s life, beauty can be found. Our Creator God is lavish, extravagant, even wasteful in his grace and glory. Everything he plans is beautiful in God’s perfect time.
I love the rhythm God established for the nation of Israel. After six harvest seasons, the land got to rest for a year (Ex. 23:10-11). Whatever came up spontaneously would be enough, God said, including the poor and the animals. Rest and trust is a rhythm he established for us whether we farm or not; we work six days and rest on the seventh, a day for trusting God that six days of work is enough.
In the end, the stubble I admire is plowed under, providing nourishment for the soil as it regenerates for the next growing season. I think that, too, is true of life. We get plowed up and sometimes plowed under, but if we trust the Lord of the harvest, we will also trust his tilling.
SONG: Great is Thy Faithfulness, Carrie Underwood & CeCe Winans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT0HcAr9aeI
PRAYER: Oh God, we are grateful for another harvest from this earth you entrusted to us. Help us remember that bare fields have a purpose too.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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