New Life

Our journey with the Lord is exactly that, a journey. We are all under the influence of the "cultural-time warp" where acceptance of how long certain things take is unconsciously measured by us and at times even for us. For instance, we measure our life span by increments of years; likewise trees grow a certain pace which is unchangeable; seasons are a period and the weather indicates those changing seasons.

However, when we look at our walk with Jesus in the context of God’s plan for us, somehow we are led to believe that the instant, the immediate and high speed can be expected because that is how life is experienced by the average  person - rushing off to work or the frazzled soccer mom on her endless rounds of kids, feeding the family in-between holding a job.

Hosea 10:12 says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”

The prophet Hosea puts our journey into context for us; sow, reap, break up, seek. There is no instantaneous here, but there is a cultivating to be understood if reaping mercy and the raining of righteousness is to be experienced. The key to this verse for me is, "for it is time to seek the Lord". When we decide "it is time" for the purpose of God, rain, God rain, is on the horizon. The response of God is thus; "comes and rains righteousness on you".

God's righteousness is His mercy, loving kindness and grace extended to an undeserving individual; it is the "rightness" of God being demonstrated, even though He does not have to. However, your part is: Firstly - sowing "rightness" (God's attitudes and actions to those around you). Secondly - Reap His mercy towards you, which is to realize and actually experience His goodness to the point of no longer doubting His intentions towards you; this leads to thirdly, a desire to "break up" the fallow ground. These are areas in your life that are unproductive and not under the Lordship of Christ. Fourthly - that will then lead you to "seek" in straightening out those areas the Lord desires and a submitting to Him in response.

Your journey is in Christ, and Christ is in your journey. You can either journey  un-distracted with Christ as the central reason for the journey, or, go on that journey like the folk we see in the summer time walking down to the beach loaded down with enough paraphernalia to cause them to stagger under the weight of it all.

Slow down and do a thorough job of cultivating in order to reap what Christ intended you to reap.