Planting In The Harvest

It is the season of harvest.

I am currently residing in central Illinois where we have quite the surplus of cornfields, and day by day I have been watching the horizon get wider around me – meaning they are cutting that stuff DOWN. Harvest. The bringing it all in. The return for your investment. It’s that time.

I am living in the season of harvest.

As much as this reality is very apparent to me I also feel quite conflicted with it. I’ve been mulling these words over and over in my head.

While living in a season of harvest, I am planting.
And that makes no sense.

Yet I think this is what God is asking of me.

What I’ve come to realize is that I have been living in the season of planting for a long time. But the moments where I’ve had to be the planter have been few compared to the moments where I was allowed to just be the soil. These last couple years have been characterized by God tilling my earth – watering, nurturing, making it a place where things could actually grow. Making it good soil.

And sometimes it didn’t feel so good. Sometimes becoming good soil felt more like an earthquake, where my fault lines were shifted in ways that I lost comprehension of the word “foundation”. Sometimes becoming good soil felt more like a desert, where I was scorched and thirsty, desperate, dying, and lonely.

But what has made me see God’s intentions, His desire for good soil, is a very simple thing: growth.

Despite feeling like an earthquake. Despite feeling like a desert. I have grown. And things have grown in me.

Things like my deep conviction that we are made with purpose and made for community. That we truly are better together. Things like we are created to create. That in some fashion or another, we are all artists. Because we have been made in the image of the ultimate Creator. Things like God deserves my very best because He did not withhold His best from me.

These things that began as seeds have grown into trees. I have something living – limbs outstretched and rooted deeply – inside of the broken vessel I call my heart. Vines have grown through the cracks, and what seemed broken and useless has found reason to be.

But an important thing that I must not forget to mention is that the trees had to be planted…by someone. Or maybe even better…someones. Sometimes these trees were sown as seeds, sometimes they were driven into the earth of my heart as springy saplings, but the common factor is that it was done over and over again.

It wasn’t just one seed sown. It wasn’t just one tree planted. It was planting, replanting, watering, nourishing. Over and over and over again. Sometimes I uprooted the trees. With harsh words, a bad attitude, bitter thoughts, apathetic hands, a crowded heart. But now looking at this process with a new a heart I see the people who were faithful to the Gardener, who were faithful to being planters, who didn’t give up every time I ripped up a tree and tossed it in their faces. Their patience, kindness, encouragement, creativity, and leadership have changed me. Actually, they continue to change me.

Now in this new season, though my soil is not fully good or done being tilled, it is my turn to be a planter. To be the one who speaks about Hope that fills and changes. The Hope that really exists. To be the one who listens to the words of others, even the words that seem to go in circles and never get anywhere new. To be the one that gets to see growth not just in myself but in those around me. To be the one who celebrates and thanks the One who makes it all come together. The One who brings it all in. The harvest.

I am praying for a forest in these barren plains.
I am praying for much fruit.

I am planting in the harvest.
Because of those who have planted before me.
And ultimately for the One who has rooted me.

Cheese Air & Ravine Singing

I’m back at school. I’ve technically been back at school since August 10th. We just finished up week 2 of actual school, like actual classes and homework and all that. It’s been busy to say the least.

Thursday was the first day of September, and it was 106 degrees. That is one way to start a fall month (I consider September a fall month even though the beginning is still kind of summery here). It’s really humid in this section of the country. That day whenenever I stepped outside it was like I was trying to breathe in cheese sauce. The air was so thick and gooey…and hot. It made me feel crazy just breathing.

That’s where I’m at in life a lot of days. Breathing in cheese sauce. Feeling hectic by existence.

The hot temperatures these days have been reminding me of Texas. I felt less like I was breathing in cheese sauce there, and more like I was being made crispy like a potato chip.

The other day when I had 800 million of things to do I decided to take a moment and sit outside on a red bench under the clarity of the sun, under the heaviness of the air, and I thought about being still. I thought about those random nights in San Angelo, Texas when we would go out into the darkness of the night to just be with God. I thought about sitting on the dirt under the stars. I thought about overlooking a ravine while being bitten by ants. I thought about being secluded by mesquite trees and playing guitar, singing toward the sky.

Those were moments of sweet freedom. My chaos released into the air with every word sung out, taken away with each dissipating shooting star. It seemed easier then. Nothing was stopping me from throwing it all out there.

Well what now?

I guess I am uncovering the realization that I am still breathing. That although the air may feel thicker here, though there are no ravines in these flatlands to sing over, there is still air to draw into my lungs. It doesn’t matter that it may feel as thick as cheese sauce. I may lack the feeling of serenity, but the God of peace is still placing stars in the sky, breathing into me. And I will sing for Him.

I will sing to Him over a ravine. I will sing to Him on red benches. I will sing to Him in Texas, New Hampshire, Illinois. I will sing to Him in a chapel. I will sing to Him in the emptiness of my room on Labor Day weekend.

I will sing to Him. I will sing about Him. I will sing for Him.

And I will breathe in, letting whatever thickness of air overtake my lungs, to breathe out a sigh of relief that I have a reason to sing.