When You’re Sowing Where Nothing’s Growing Yet
For the places where we feel like we’re teaching grumpy fourth graders.
On a recent prayer call, my friend Renita opened with 1 Timothy 1:17: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Then she sang the beautiful song that begins, "Immortal, invisible, God only wise, / in light inaccessible hid from our eyes, / most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, / almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.”
She said, “The Lord was reminding me that I learned that in fourth grade at Christian school. Our choir teacher made us all memorize it, and I thought it was such a waste of time to have to memorize these words. But the word of the Lord does not return void.”
And she prayed for encouragement for our hearts, for the places where we feel like we are teaching the grumpy fourth graders, the places where we sow into places that won’t bear fruit for some time to come.
Lord, your word instructs us to “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days” (Ecc. 11:1). Which always seems a bit odd to me, like: wouldn’t it just get soggy and sink? But may we persist in doing good, and look forward to the harvest of righteousness. Amen.
To the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever,
Amy Joy
P.S. Yesterday was the first day of the three weeks of Pursue, the time of intensive prayer. https://happybooks.me/pursue
I had my eggs and my peaches and my figs for breakfast, and by midday, I thought: I am really hungry! I am avoiding processed ingredients, so I went to get a can of sardines. I couldn't find the normal sardines on my shelf, so I went and got sardines from storage.
Mid-bite, I thought: wow, that list of ingredients seems longer than I would have expected.
Sure enough, the last ingredient was liquid aqueous smoke.
What?!
Lord, you know I did not eat this intentionally. I was thinking a sardine was a sardine, and it never crossed my mind that it might have liquid aqueous smoke. I'm embarrassed.
He laughed and said, "It was never about your effort."
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