Sowing and Reaping

I was really struck by John 4:35-38 this morning during my quiet time. Take a second to read it. In it, Jesus talks about sewers and reapers. I think that there's a skewed view of sowing amongst Christians. Reaping is pretty obvious. I can go to church most Sundays and see reaping taking place, but sowing is harder to see, therefore it's easy to get confused about just what it is.

As I said, when I see someone come to church on a Sunday and accept Christ, that's a very visible example of reaping, so it's easy to think that sowing was someone inviting that person to church. But rarely will someone's first step to God be coming to church. I never see the person who holds the door for someone having a rough day or the person who treats the server like an actual person at lunch, or the friend who shows Christ's love by being a comforter to someone suffering or the family member who has been sharing the Gospel and inviting the person to church for five years only to have them finally go when someone else invites them. Sowing is almost always behind the scenes and it isn't confined to just talking about the Gospel.

And Jesus, in these verses, refers to the sower and the reaper as two different people. The Lord might not allow me to lead to Christ those that I share the Gospel with. Like on my trip, I got to talk about the Gospel with a bunch of people, and not one of them seemed remotely interested at the time, but the Lord might not be done with them yet and I might just be a step in the process. That's the beauty of the Church being a body. We each have different roles and gifts for reaching people. On our own, we might not be able to make any impact, but together we can change the world.

I guess the beauty of all of this is that the Lord even allows us to take part in this process. He didn't have to choose to let us be His method for reaching the world, but He did. He has entrusted us with the most important job in the universe and that's a big deal. And it's pretty awesome to think that even if I don't feel like I'm making a big impact by bringing people into the Kingdom in droves, I'm still playing a part if I'm just being obedient and loving people and sharing the Gospel with them.