Count on it! (Day 2)

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

Galatians 6:7

Recently, we returned from a trip to northern Iowa, the place of my growing-up years. It was planting time and the farmers and any of their friends, relatives or acquaintances able to drive a tractor were consumed with getting the crops in Shortly after planting, the first green shoots will emerge from the rich Midwestern soil. In a few months, the crews will re-gather to harvest the mature crops of corn, soybeans and alfalfa.

Corn kernels by definition contain “corn life.” If you planted corn and got watermelon, you would know that, appearances aside, the seed you put in the ground was not corn. “Like begets like” is a rock-solid principle on which the natural world operates.  What Paul is saying in Galatians is that what is true in the natural realm is just as true in the spiritual realm.

 The people around Asaph the writer of Psalm 73, may sound a lot like some folks you are familiar with. “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”(vs. 11) they challenge, as they scoff at your faith. And, by the looks of things in your world and perhaps the enviable trajectory of their life, they may be right.

 Don’t be deceived! What we sow in our lives—like the seed germinating under the fertile soil—isn’t immediately apparent. Even the baby leaves that poke through the soil are remarkably similar in most plants. Yet, in a short time, those chubby cotyledons will morph into slender corn and shrubby alfalfa. As in life, the initial result is not always a reliable predictor of the final outcome.

But there is another bit of information in this verse that is worthy of our full attention: God cannot be mocked. What God has said is not something to be discarded as worthless or irrelevant. It will never fail to come to pass in His time and in His way. To believe that His Word is open to rejection or our own interpretation is the essence of deception. More on that tomorrow…

Nancy Shirah