In a previous blog with regards to the law of the harvest we saw the type of harvest that is reaped. But there is a third important principle to remember: We reap in a different season than we sow in. There is always a time lapse between sowing and reaping. Just as the farmer has to wait through the growing season for the plants to mature, blossom, and develop fruit, we have to wait for our seed to grow and mature too.
The basis of this law is found in the creative purpose of God’s law: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:… a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2). In Genesis 8:22 God made Noah a promise: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” The harvest never comes immediately after planting for there are seasons to life and the harvest never comes immediately. “Rome was not built in a day.” Plants don’t grow overnight. Athletes don’t become strong or proficient in a week. Wisdom isn’t gained in a single lesson, and so it goes throughout all of life. Scripture and life itself teach us that time is needed for growth and maturity in everything—the biological, zoological, social, spiritual, and mental areas of life. This law of reaping carries with it both a warning and encouragement.
There is a warning to the unbeliever. Because you do not see the immediate results, you often think you have gotten away with something—but you never do. You may be able to deceive yourself for a while that the sowing of selfishness is really going to yield more joy than sowing sacrifice for the sake of God’s Word. But you ought to remember that “God is not mocked!” “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Because the ice on the pond doesn’t break immediately, we venture farther, walking on thin ice. But it is certain that “their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste” (Deuteronomy 32:35).
But there is encouragement here for the believer.
