Seed, time… and harvest.

I wouldn’t be doing you any favours if I talked about the promises of God as though they happen overnight. You can read the Word of God today and discover a promise of God in the Word. However, the promise doesn’t come to fruition overnight. I wish it did but that’s not how it works. Genesis 8:22 says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

So from our verse we can see that there is a law that was put in place of s seed, time and harvest. No farmer ever plants seed today and expects the harvest tomorrow. The laws of nature tell us that if you plant a seed in the ground today, you have to give it time to develop and then eventually it germinates and then the plant starts to grow and then later on comes harvest.  The same is true in the spirit realm. 

Depending on what you are planting, the “time” aspect changes. We are not in charge of the time. With the promises of God, there is no recipe for when they will start bearing fruit in your life. Some people choose to obey God today and the next day or week or month, things start changing. Other times it takes years to see the promises start unfolding. The time we spend in the waiting, in the middle, is mostly up to God.

The Israelites left Egypt and spent 40 years roaming around in the wilderness. Initially God had them there because they were not strong enough to fight the inhabitants of the promised land when they left Egypt  and He did not want them to run back to Egypt, back into slavery (Exodus 13:17). God in His mercy made them wait. Also the waiting time was designed to help them realise how much God was for them. He was a cloud by day. Can you imagine how hot it got in the desert during the day? But God was a cloud, a covering over them. He was also a pillar of fire by night. Apparently it gets really cold in the desert too at night. So God was providing heat and warmth for them. He rained manna from heaven. He was taking care of all of their needs. He wanted them to know that He was close and not a far way off. That He was with them and for them.

The same with us. When we start walking with God, He wants us to learn His nature, Who He is and how much He loves us. This will in turn build us up until we are strong and we can say like Caleb said in Numbers 13:30, “We should go up and take possession of the [promised] land, for we can certainly do it.” [word in brackets is mine]. This is a man who had seen the giants in the promised land but he still believed that with God on their side they could take possession of the promised land. 

So there is a purpose to the time in between our seed and our harvest, in between our obedience and the manifestation of the promise. But whatever happens in the middle we must not let fear or unbelief set in. Unbelief is not just about not believing, it is also about wrong believing. We need to make sure that whilst we wait, we pay attention to the lessons God is teaching us in the waiting. 

Had the Israelites truly been paying attention to the God who split the Red Sea for them and drowned Pharaoh and his army before their eyes, the God who fed them quail when they wanted meat, the God who gave them water when they were thirsty (this is water in the middle of the desert for over 600,000 people), healed them when they were afflicted, protected them and covered them. If they had been paying attention to all of that, they too, like Joshua and Caleb would have believed that the giants in the promised land had nothing on them because God was on their side. 

The time in between our seed and harvest, is preparation time. God takes that time seriously and He uses it to help us get ready for the promises. God’s promises are not flimsy but they are steadfast and long lasting. We can still inherit the blessing of Abraham long after he is gone. God’s promises are nothing to take lightly. Our obedience to God’s word will not only bless our lives but it will bless the lives of our children and their children and their children up to the thousandth generation. 

So if God is taking a bit of time with you before you receive the promises you have been waiting on, trust Him, He is good. His promises are always worth the wait. Keep believing and keep obeying. Don’t give up in the middle. Galatians 6:9 says, “And don’t allow yourselves to be weary or disheartened in planting good seeds, for the season of reaping the wonderful harvest you’ve planted is coming!” So get excited, at the right time, the harvest will surely come.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano