Sowing and reaping

This is a snapshot of me and Choochie hanging out at my laptop last month. She and I have a very close relationship. Almost every time I rev up my laptop (actually, pretty much anytime I try to sit quietly), she shows up out of nowhere and tries to snuggle with me. I know she's just my cat, but she's extremely precious to me, and I cherish our relationship.

About 13 years ago, after I was released from the psych hospital, my roommate had to kick me out of her house for a little while. So, I was sent to live with a family from church. Choochie was a kitten back then, and I couldn't take her with me to my temporary home because the lady of the family from church was allergic to cats. So, I would drive about 30 minutes almost every day to my roommate's house just to see Choochie. I mean, I couldn't let her forget her Mama, right? (Pet therapy.) I think sowing into that relationship worked. Now she's a 13-year-old cat who insists on being wherever I am. I think she and I have a great owner-pet relationship.

Hmm. This sounds familiar. Have I blogged about this before? Probably. I guess you naturally tend to talk incessantly about whoever or whatever you love.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." (Galatians 6:7-8)

Lately, I've been thinking a ton about the subject of sowing and reaping. (Basically that means that if you plant apple seeds, you'll get apple trees. If you plant squash seeds, you'll get squash. But you can't plant beans and get watermelons. Make sense?) I used to think that was kind of a harsh thing, but now I'm beginning to see how merciful and loving of a law it really is. After all, sowing and reaping is a law that God -- a merciful, gracious, loving God -- put into place.

But the principle of sowing and reaping can definitely be a sad, tragic thing sometimes. Take AIDS, for example. Anyone who follows my blog knows how I feel about homosexuality and related issues. (I don't hate gay people; I know firsthand what gay desires feel like. I hate homosexuality, and I love the God who loved me first and who heals me.) I truly hope I'm not being insensitive by writing or saying this, especially since there are many different circumstances in which a person could get AIDS. I think AIDS can be a perfect example of sowing a bad thing and reaping a bad thing. If you sin sexually, you sin against your own body. So, after a person commits a sinful sexual act, AIDS is one way that that person's body can sin back against that person by eventually killing him or her.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of research on Freddie Mercury's music and life. (He was an artistic and musical genius. It's a tragedy that he's gone.) From what I understand, he gradually embraced a homosexual lifestyle. Once he embraced it, he plunged into it very deeply and very promiscuously. Years later, at least one of his friends and/or business associates learned what AIDS was and asked Freddie Mercury if he was being careful, because they didn't want him to catch the disease. Freddie Mercury basically replied that he was going to continue to do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted. Then AIDS killed him in 1991. He was a fun, talented, beautiful person who had been blessed with so much, and then it was all gone.

Freddie Mercury wasn't the only richly blessed man who sowed into the wrong thing. Check out the following progression.

"And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days." (1 Kings 3:13-14)

"Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statues and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.' But if you or your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples." (1 Kings 9:4-7)

"Now all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. Each man brought his present: articles of silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, and mules, at a set rate year by year. And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland." (1 Kings 10:24-27)

"BUT... King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites -- from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, 'You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.' Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods." (1 Kings 11:1-8, dramatic emphasis mine)

I think even while allowing His sowing-and-reaping law to take effect, God is merciful and gracious. It doesn't look like Solomon made one teeny little mistake and then suddenly had his kingdom ripped away from him. God ripped most of Solomon's kingdom away from his son after Solomon consistently sowed unfaithfulness to Him. I think Solomon had plenty of chances to repent. He had plenty of chances to be sorry enough for what he had done to stop doing it and turn back to God. Instead, he kept sowing unfaithfulness to God, so he reaped the ripping away of most of his kingdom.

This boggles my mind. (Not because I'm better than Solomon but because of the hugeness of what happened.) KING SOLOMON -- as in, the king of Israel who finally got to build God a temple -- turned around and built places of worship for OTHER gods. This happened after God very specifically spelled out for Solomon to NOT do this. I hope I'm not being disrespectful when I say this, but King Solomon was abundantly, prosperously, majorly, humongously, freakishly blessed. King Solomon didn't have to rent a storage space at U-Haul. He had entire storage CITIES. Even the Queen of Sheba heard about King Solomon, so she came to visit him, and she was extremely impressed.

(Awhile back, a few Christians freaked out because Joyce Meyer supposedly bought a $500,000 toilet. I researched the rumor a tiny bit and discovered that she had actually bought very expensive furniture (not a commode) for around $23,000 or possibly more. So what? She can buy whatever she wants with her money. Maybe instead of criticizing a public figure for how she spends her money, you should make sure you're actually tithing and not doing foolish things with your own money. Wait. Did I just type that out loud?)

Then King Solomon did the one thing that God didn't want him to do -- he turned his heart away from Him. (I guess in a way, he did what Adam and Eve did, what all of us end up doing.) I don't know exactly what drove King Solomon to do what he did, but maybe he got a tiny bit greedy? I mean, 1,000 women is a bit much. At any rate, he began to worship their gods. I haven't done very much research about these foreign gods, but from what I understand, worshiping these gods wasn't like worshiping the God of Israel. I think at least one of them required sacrificing children. I think at least another one of them required orgies. So, King Solomon didn't just build a nice little church building for each one of these gods. He built places where people could do all kinds of sins, and he himself indulged in this unfaithfulness to God.

So, as a result of the destruction that King Solomon sowed, God ripped most of the kingdom away from his son. Not to mention, I'm curious now about what the Israelites thought about everything. "Yay! I love living here in Solomon's kingdom! He's so wise and rich, and the temple he built is so beautiful!" "Um, wait. If God blessed him with so much wisdom, wealth, and women, why is he dissing Him by worshiping other gods? Doesn't he know that God sees all that crap? And what's going to become of us and our nation now if King Solomon is all distracted with his new party lifestyle?" "Uh-oh, maybe I should get out of here before it starts raining thunderbolts. I wonder if I can get a cool shepherding job in Egypt."

One thing about the sowing-and-reaping principle is that it honors God. I think in a way, it's proof that there is a God. And He isn't going to be mocked. He's going to allow whatever is reaped to be sown. I think anytime that happens, it's as if God is saying either "You thought you could get away with that? Nope, sorry, that wouldn't be just" or "You think you're not going to get something good out of this? Of course you are, and I'm proud of you for patiently waiting for it."

If I plant strawberries, I'm not going to get oranges. That would be absurd. There would be no order there. There would be no justice there. There would be confusion, heartache, and probably even paranoia. So, if I get oranges when I plant strawberries, what will happen the next time I plant strawberries? Will I get grapes? Will I get bananas? Will I get Toyotas? When the heck will I get strawberries? When will the madness end??

See what I mean? God designed strawberry seeds to produce strawberry plants, period, no exceptions.

Of course, all sorts of situations could prevent strawberry seeds from sprouting correctly. Maybe the seeds could turn out to be duds. Maybe the seeds could be neglected and not receive the proper amount of sunlight or water. All sorts of things could go wrong. But in general, if you plant strawberries, you'll get strawberries.

And when things do go wrong, God -- in His mercy and grace -- can fix them. And/or He can comfort you if/when things are unfixable. And/or He can be there every step of the way and help you make some sense of it all.

King David (Solomon's dad) sowed some bad things, too. He made some major mistakes. He wasn't perfect. But from what I understand, he kept coming back to God. I think it's interesting that 1 Kings 11:2 says that Solomon clung to his new gods. (Or maybe he just clung to his women who happened to worship other gods?) In the NIV version of Psalm 63:8, David says that he clings to God. I think that's a very vulnerable declaration to make. I mean, a warrior-king telling a God that he can't see with his natural eyes that he clings to him? That's hardcore. David definitely wasn't perfect, but I think he followed God around like a lovesick puppydog. I think God likes that.

God wants us to give Him our hearts. I think when we turn away from Him by giving our hearts away to other gods/things/people, it breaks His heart. Yes, God is merciful and gracious, but He's also just. Maybe one reason why He allows us to reap what we sow is to remind us of who He is. He's God.

I guess another way of saying "you reap what you sow" is "you get what you pay for." Of course, there are tons of examples of this. My employer comes to mind. After only being inside our new office space for 3 weeks, we've already had lots of problems with plumbing, security, and construction. I keep thinking that my employer is getting what they paid for. I guess they paid for something cheaply, so they got cheap products and services at our expense.

Speaking of expensive, Queen's A Night at the Opera was a very expensive, costly album to produce. The band spent a very great deal of time and energy into writing, recording, and producing the album. Queen poured the best of what they had into the project. As a result, A Night at the Opera is a masterpiece. Queen took a risk, and it was very worth it for them, and it was extremely worth it for us listeners who enjoy feasting our ears on musical banquets.

We can all sow good things and reap good things, too. If I sow into a friendship with God, I'll reap the coolest friendship I'll ever have. If I sow into a Father-daughter relationship with God, I'll reap the deepest, most intimate relationship I'll ever have with anybody. If I continue to submit my emotions to Him, He'll continue to give me healing. But if I pour my emotions into somebody else, I'll break His heart. And I'm sure I'd hear about it later.

"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:6-7)

I think many potential relationships have a window of opportunity. The most important relationship that anyone will ever have is definitely with God. While we're here on earth, our window of opportunity is wide open. After we die, it will close forever. If I seek God now while I'm here on earth, and if I find Him, I'll be His friend in the afterlife, too. If I sow into my relationship with Him now, I hope I'll reap an eternal sweetness later. (Heck, I think I'm already reaping some sweetness with Him.) But if I don't, I'll lose my opportunity forever. I don't think God will always be seekable, unless you've already found Him.

Of course, I'm just a finite little human being. God is big and infinite. But He's my Father, and I'm His little girl. As His child, I think I understand a little bit about how He feels about sowing and reaping into a relationship. If I choose somebody to be my friend, and that person neglects to sow into our friendship, or if I'm doing all the sowing, or if they only sow once in a while, after I was counting on them to sow more often, I won't feel like they truly want to be my friend. If I contact a friend who takes 3 months to contact me back and they say "Sorry for taking so long to reply" every single time, for years... well, yes, of course I'm supposed to forgive them. But after hearing dozens of "sorry"s for the same offense, you begin to wonder how sorry they really are, you know? I mean, do I really have my friend's heart? Or will I be taken for granted by this person for the rest of my life?

This is why the "Unfriend" button on Facebook is so exhilarating for me. You know what? After so much sowing, I usually let the person reap what they've sown. If the person doesn't really want a relationship, then they won't get a relationship. Bye. Smiling sigh. More room in my life for people who want me in their lives now.

But that's just how I roll. Rejecting God is much more eternally dangerous.

Switching gears to talk about something more pleasant, I appreciate you reading this very long post. I hope it's been a good investment of your time.

I'm still glad I invested all that time (and car miles) into visiting my little kitten all those years ago. She and I definitely don't have a perfect owner-pet relationship (I had to remove her from a forbidden countertop while I was typing this post), but I think it's a very nice one overall. Whenever she perches on my shoulder or tries to sleep on my pillow at night or crouches by my cereal bowl in the mornings, I wonder if she remembers all those times that I sowed into our relationship all those years ago.

I know God and I won't ever forget each other, either.