Lent #8: "that's not fair!"

the work of the farmer isn't always fair

I am wondering today about the work of a pastor.  It seems as though transformation takes a very long time in my life, and in all of our lives.  


^{John 4: 37}The saying may be old, but it is true: “One person sows, and another reaps.” ³⁸ I sent you to harvest where you have not labored; someone else took the time to plant and cultivate, and you feast on the fruit of their labor.
Breathe John 4.


There are a lot of books about getting ministry right.  The right strategies, the right was to contextualize the gospel, the right ways to be the people of God.  I have come to find that it's not about getting it right.  It's about faithfulness.  As people of God, we have a patch of ground to take care of each season of our lives.  Sometimes that patch of ground is our own families, at other times it could be a community-group, a neighborhood, or a workplace.  We are the farmers that tend the ground. We plant, prune, till, and harvest.  Then, in the following season of life, we do it again. And again.  The fruit isn't our own. We don't make it grow. Sometimes our ministry season is tending another plot of ground that someone else has been tending for a long time and we get to bring in the abundancy of another's harvest.  Being steadfast people of God who are faithful to the ground God is giving us is our work. At times we will not even have a glimpse of the harvest from the ground we care for, someone else will.


The work of the farmer is to do the work and trust the harvest to the Grower. We will face drought and torrential rain and windstorms.  There will be seasons of little harvest and of famine in the land.  Our work is to be steadfast and trust the growing to the Creator.


I don't really think that this is fair.