In Praise of the Plow: On Dirt and Difficulty

Let's pretend that your life is dirt...very valuable dirt at that, precious earth to be cultivated for the sake of a harvest. Some like myself believe that the first man that ever lived was formed out of dirt, after which a Creator God breathed life into him. Whatever you think about that, I think we can agree that in dirt and in life, cultivation of some kind is required in order for the best fruits to grow. And parts of that cultivation process can be painful, especially when it comes to preparing the soil, a process that is known as "plowing." I came across a proverb this morning, and I felt that God gave me some insights on this plowing process that may also prove helpful for you. Let's start digging, shall we?

The proverb that stuck out to me this morning said, "Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing." -Proverbs 20:4 (NIV)

While I do not consider myself lazy like the sluggard in this proverb, I have experienced times when I thought there would be a bountiful harvest based on seeds that I had planted, yet found little fruit where it seemed there should be. I think I am beginning to understand why that is.

To plow involves the breaking and preparing of earth so that the soil can receive the seeds when they are planted. There may be plots of land that have never been tilled or other fields which, while fertile at one time, have grown hard and unfertile through the changing of seasons. In either case, plowing is necessary. And while plowing can be painful, we would do well to welcome the process for the sake of the most fruitful harvest. If the soil is not prepared before the seeds are sown, the harvest will be minimal or else non-existent. How can we recognize potential plows in our own lives so as to ensure a bountiful harvest in due time? Here are some ideas:

1. Hardship. There is nothing like difficulty to break open our lives to the possibility of something new that may be coming. Any of you who have played sports, studied hard in school, or have simply endured some kind of suffering, can attest to the fact that when we persevere through the difficulties of life, it produces strength in us which makes way for future victories, in the long term or the short. James, the brother of Jesus, had this to say of hardship:

"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." -James 1:2-4

I'd go so far as to say that the hardships we endure actually prepare us to both receive and contain the good fruit that is coming later. Without the endurance that hardship produces, we might not be in a heart state to properly steward and keep what we have sought so hard to gain.

2. Change. If you are like me, there are some changes that you welcome and some changes that you absolutely hate. Change often requires growth, adapting to new circumstances or challenges. Yet the adaptability that change brings forth often prepares us to be flexible where needed so that new seeds can grow. Imagine a seed trying to get into hardened soil, saying, "Let me in! I want to put down roots and provide you with a tasty fruit tree!" But the soil says, "No, I'm fine the way I am. There's no room for you here. I'm cram-packed together. I'm not crackin' for nobody!" (Funny how the seed has proper grammar and the soil in this example does not. Perhaps that's another area of growth for this particular soil. Ha!) Do you think much is going to grow here? No. But if the hardened earth has been gradually getting softer as a result of the plowing process, in this case, many changes, there is room to receive the seed and to allow it space to do its own work. Where in your life might you need to flex to provide space for new things that God or others want to plant there?


3.Prayer. Some of you reading this may not believe in prayer, but I encourage you to go with me on this for the sake of the exploration. I believe that prayer is one of the most powerful change agents, since it has to do with the unseen, and much of what happens within the human heart is unseen. We can see the effects of the human heart from a person's outward actions, but rarely do we see what is happening on the inside of a person in full detail. Many of us feel like kings or queens in our own right, and at times, no amount of hardship or change will prepare our hearts in the way that they need to be prepared for the seeds to produce their harvest. But God can change our hearts, make us ready. Another proverb that I love says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases." -Proverbs 21:1 Are you suffering from a hardened heart or know someone who is? Are you perhaps so burnt out by the hardships and changes that you have endured that instead of opening your heart, they have caused your plot of earth to harden even more? In those cases, seeds of hope and life have little chance to grow. This is where prayer can be so helpful. You or someone you know can pray to God to change the heart, to redirect it like a course of water, wherever God pleases. And if you're praying to the God that I know, the one who makes chai and so many other good things, the destination of his pleasure is going to be a good one.

Really, anything that produces an openness or softening of our hearts can be a plow in our lives. This is so encouraging to me because it means the seemingly pointless struggles that we go through can actually be God's way of preparing us for a bounty of incredible fruitfulness in the next season. And without that plowing process, we might sabotage the very harvest that we seek to sow into. I have been going through a tough season lately, much of it fueled by being "homeless" in New York City for the past month and looking for a new apartment for even longer. Yet this morning, after reading and processing that proverb, I began to thank God for however he is plowing my heart in this time of couch surfing, apartment hunting, and seeming instability. Though I cannot see all that he is doing in my heart, I am confident that this process has been necessary in order for me to enjoy whatever he has for me in the next season. Come harvest time, I'm going to enjoy the fruit that springs from the surface, knowing that the plow made the promise possible.

"So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." -Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

I know it's hard, and sometimes you just want to faint under the heavy heat and hard labor that plowing requires. But as other translations of the above verse say, faint not! You and I will reap our harvest, and this plowing season shall end. Should you think you might faint regardless, join me in looking to the one who never faints, and in so doing, we can become like him.


"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint." -Isaiah 40:28-31

An Appetizer of Words...Short Thoughts in Lieu of a Full Post

It has been awhile since I have written a new blog post here, and there have been a few potential posts percolating in my mind. Since I am not quite ready to share those ideas just yet, I figured I would at least provide a few thoughts as an appetizer of sorts, before the next main course is served. The first section is a list of topics that I may write on soon, so as to whet your appetite. Consider this a glance at the possible menu of what's to come. The second section shall contain a few nuggets that I have begun to muse upon. Consider these the actual hors d'oeuvres. Enjoy!

Part 1 (in no particular order):

*A Tale of Two Narrators: Whose story are you living?

*The Fight Against Fear, Part 1: Bat-like Faith

*The Fight Against Fear, Part 2: Cushions in the Tempest

*The Fight Against Fear, Part 3: Worry, Shut-Up!


Part 2:

'Tis better to believe and risk being wrong than to disbelieve for fear of being wrong, for the friend of belief is hope and joy, even if correction decides to follow after. Disbelief has less jovial companions, such as worry, fear, and heaviness of heart, to name a few. I'll take hope and joy, thank you very much!

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Our thoughts and words create fruit, whether sweet or spoiled, and we will eat what we decide to cultivate in the orchard of our minds. Put another way, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." -Proverbs 18:21 (ESV) Don't like what's in your orchard? Uproot the trees, and plant something else in their place!

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Here's an interesting thought in regard to where we direct our minds: "If you search for good, you will find favor; but if you search for evil, it will find you!" -Proverbs 11:27 (NLT) While we don't get to control everything that happens to us, we do have a tremendous say in what we bring into our lives as a result of our own focus. Where are you looking? That's likely what you will see. ;-)

Desire's End or What Pac-Man Really Wants

For the past month or two, I have been intrigued by some sayings that I came across in the book of Proverbs, sayings that have to do with desire. I have been trying to wrap my mind and heart around these verses because on the surface they seem so good, yet at the same time, experience could dictate otherwise. Which is it? Are these sayings untrue, or do I need to go deeper to discover what they are really saying? Today, I want to talk about DESIRE through the lens of these three proverbs. I bet you are wondering what they are. Let's jump in!

King Solomon, the same guy I quoted much of in my last post, had this to say about desire in a book we now know as Proverbs: "The desire of the righteous ends only in good, but the hope of the wicked only in wrath." -Proverbs 11:23

Lest this proverb be shucked off an anomaly and not worth really considering, there are two other proverbs that say something very similar in the chapter just before: "What the wicked dreads will overtake him; what the righteous desire will be granted." -Proverbs 10:24

"The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing." -Proverbs 10:28

Do you see a pattern here? See what this king is saying? It almost seems too good to be true, when taken at face value, and too many experiences of failed hopes can further the argument to give these sayings little real attention and to quickly move on. But we can't move on. We shouldn't. We'll miss something very deep, very important. And since when does experience become the barometer for truth? I find that often my own experiences have been misinterpreted by a cloudy vision on my part, thus preventing myself from knowing the truth of a situation for what it really was. So let's include experience in our discourse but treat it with less weight than it is due.

I want to break this apart some, as I do believe King Solomon is getting at something deeper than what's on the surface of these verses. Yet what is on the surface is not to be missed. Let's just focus on the first one. It says that "the desire of the righteous ends only in good," as opposed to the hopes of the wicked, which don't end well. Here is where experience would come in and tell us, "Ah, ah! Not so fast! That's not how it really works. Look at all of those selfish people who do whatever they want at the demise of others and get away with it! They get what they want. Their hopes aren't completely deflated." Or, experience might say something like this, on the other side: "You consider yourself righteous, yet look at all of the desires in your life that haven't been fulfilled. Look at all of the times in which you've hoped and not received that which you desired. Surely something is wrong here."

I was journaling just earlier, and trying to pick apart this proverb in question (from Proverbs 11:23). Something hit me. It is perhaps the END of our desire that it truly fulfilled, and I don't simply mean "end" as in "end of life," though that can be true at times. It hit me that someone who has a truly righteous desire, a hope or want that comes from a place that is pure and is centered in God, is going to indeed get that desire fulfilled, the root of it, or the END of it.

Let's look at it this way. If you are desiring to do something great with your life and have a specific way in which you aim to do it, it is very likely that you will achieve that, but perhaps you won't. However, the desire itself is good, what is driving it and what is at the root, so the END of that desire (what ends up actually fulfilling it) is going to be nothing but good. Make sense yet? Let's break it down further:

Let's look at Pac-Man. ("Pac-Man?" you might ask. Yes, Pac-Man. It just came to me. Let's see where this goes.) What is Pac-Man's desire. His desire is to eat all of the little dots in his path, and the fruits along the way while preventing getting eaten by any ghosts. There are many ways in which Pac-Man can do this, but let's pretend that he had one set of directions he wanted to follow, and one set only.

"I, Pac-Man, want to go straight, left, up, left, and right, then eat only cherries and and a banana along the way to my destination."

Now, what if Pac-Man, because of the ghosts who come along to corner him, has to take a different route? Suppose he gets to go straight, left, and up, but finds he has to go right first, then right again? And what if he missed the cherries and banana but he got a good gulp of strawberry along the way? Let us also suppose that Pac-Man completed his level. He arrived at his destination, and the end of it was good. Did he get what he wanted?

I think our lives are similar. There are all kind of things that we desire, when perhaps what we really desire beyond the specifics are the root, heart fulfillments that those specifics provide. In Pac-Man's case, he wants to get to his goal in a certain manner and have some tart and sweet fruit along the way (the cherries and the banana). Maybe he could have gotten everything just as he wished, but in our example, he got strawberries instead (and went another route). I conjecture that strawberries are both tart AND sweet, so Pac-Man got the better deal. And he reached the end of his destination, albeit going a different way.

Am I saying that we are never to desire specific things, since there is something deeper underneath that we want and will receive the root fulfillment from? No, not at all. Actually, I would say the opposite. In a world where multiple ghosts and roadblocks come to divert us from the path we've set ourselves on (Pac-Man, speak, mind you), it is all too easy to give up on desiring wholeheartedly and instead settle for whatever comes, or worse, remaining complacently stationary. It is good for Pac-Man to want those cherries, just as it is good for us to desire specific things! Maybe he will get the cherries (he sometimes does), and maybe we will achieve what we are specifically desiring (often times we do). I daresay it is in pursuit of those desires that we can come to a place of receiving the END of that desire, whether it is what we specifically sought out for or not. Imagine Pac-Man not moving anywhere. Those ghosts would gobble him up in a second, and do so repeatedly until...yup...Game Over. But that is not you and me. No, we shall be brave enough to desire, and we will win. Leave the wrath for those pesky ghosts. That's the end of their desire.

Are you afraid to desire? Are you desiring, but not desiring as big and and boldly as you think or know you can? Don't brace yourself for disappointment and forget to move. That's no way to live. Desire boldly, and let that desire move you in extravagant pursuit of that which you long for. If your desire is rooted in righteousness, you'll be fine. And the way to make sure it is rooted in righteousness is...well, I'll leave you with one other verse, one of my favorites, from the Psalms, and you can figure it out.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." -Psalm 37:4