Don’t Give up

If you believe you already know what God’s will is for your life, but you’ve been waiting a long time for it to be fulfilled, let me encourage you with these words from Habakkuk 2:2–4 where God told Habakkuk: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come” (NKJV).

The important thing to remember is that you are planting seeds right now that will determine what you will reap tomorrow. Your attitude is a seed. Your time is a seed. Your prayers are seeds. One common reason people get frustrated is that they begin planting good seeds (such as the ones we discussed in the previous bible study, about what to do while you are seeking God’s will), yet they are not seeing the fruit they want. Let me explain it like this.

Some time ago I decided it was time to get back in shape. I bought a set of exercise videos that had come to me with high recommendations. The very first day of my new regimen, my six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter were joined by their mother who decided that they wanted to exercise with me. So the four of us were warming up together for an invigorating callisthenic workout. We were only about five minutes into the video—still somewhere in the stretches—when my son turned to me with great excitement and said, “Hey, Dad, look. You almost got muscles. Look at your elbows!”

My wife and I had a real good laugh, but my poor son never understood what was so funny. I didn’t have the heart to break it to him that it doesn’t work that way. It takes a long time and many doughnuts, followed by excessive periods of sedentary inactivity and lack of resolve to become as out of shape as I was. And getting fit, losing weight, and building muscle doesn’t happen overnight either—much less after a few minutes of warming up. We don’t live on a farm, so my son is learning the principles of sowing and reaping in other ways. Unfortunately these are principles many adults still do not understand.

When I was a pastor, a newly saved church member approached me after the service one Sunday morning. He was obviously disgruntled and wanted a word with me. “Pastor,” he said, “the Bible says to ‘test God’ with the tithe and offering, and that’s exactly what I did.” He went on to explain that before he became a Christian and started attending the church, his family had been going through a season of great financial hardship. Now that he was learning about the Bible, he read Malachi’s guarantee that the “windows of heaven” would be opened over those who give.

The past Sunday he decided to “test God.” He emptied out his wallet in the offering plate and gave for the first time. But the subsequent week was not as he had anticipated. His financial difficulties continued, and he was concerned that there was something wrong with the Bible. He had sown a seed but had not reaped a harvest.

This brother’s mistake was a basic misunderstanding of how sowing and reaping works, much like my son when he was examining my elbows for muscle sprouts five minutes into our first workout. I explained to this gentleman that whatever you are harvesting now is not the result of what you planted a few hours ago.

Today you are reaping what you planted months ago, even years ago, in a different season. Likewise the seeds you plant today won’t necessarily be ready for harvest by the next day or even by next Sunday.