The Excellence of Love: Sowing & Reaping

We buy fresh vegetables here. Really fresh. When I opened this pea pod, it seemed so perfect; I just had to take a picture. The peas were flawlessly formed and the pods were thick and waxy. I realized I had never seen a more perfect pea.

Sitting on the front step shelling peas for three hours gave me a lot of time to think. I thought about sowing and reaping; gardening and evangelism:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Galatians 6:7-9

I also thought about a card a friend once gave me. It had a picture of a pea pod on the front and it said, “We’re two peas in a pod. I’m the one on the left and you’re the one on the right.” I’m convinced we are “peas in a pod” because we sow love, joy, and encouragement into one another’s lives:

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:14

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:19-20

I’m learning a lot about gardening these days. Georgia and I are going to plant a garden when she arrives. I’ve been gathering information, noticing other gardens, getting our plot of land ready, ordering seeds, and planting a few fruits and flowers in advance. As I sow this garden, I am reminded to sow into the lives of my friends thousands of miles away through prayer. I’m reminded, too of how hard the soil is in the hearts and lives of our national friends. I wonder how long it will take to reap a harvest.

I also wonder how many of you labor alongside me. Faithfully praying, sowing, planting and waiting for the harvest. Surely our work together is better than my work alone:

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12