White for Harvest
At the beginning of May, I sat on my front porch and wrote a devotion about birdsong. A couple of weeks earlier, I wrote about springtime and the beautiful Spring flowers. If you didn’t notice then, I’ll tell you now that Spring is my favorite time of the year. Everything budding out and coming to life, the brilliant colors and aroma of the Honeysuckle. The warmth of the sun after a long cold winter. Life is starting anew. Everything is fresh and alive. I am in my happy place!!
I wish I could be as cheerful about Autumn though. I admit the colors of the leaves are spectacular against the bright blue sky. The mountain rivers are so crystal clear it almost looks like glass. The birds are still singing their songs of praise in the morning, but it’s starting to get too cool to sit on the front porch to listen to them as I visit with God. Besides, the noise of dried, withered leaves tussled about by the wind grows louder with each passing day slowly drowning out the birdsong.
The flowers in my garden are nearly all fading away, and the Mimosa blossoms are long gone now leaving the browned and hardened seedpods. The smell of the air has changed as winter grass takes over the lawn and the falling leaves deplete the forest canopy. Squirrels and chipmunks are busy gathering nuts for winter, and the deer have changed their coat to blend in better with the dull grey of leafless trees and shriveled Multifloral Rose.
I don’t know about you, but Autumn brings a sense of dread to me. All the beauty of Spring and Summer fading away and the thought of a cold, bleak winter coming soon makes me sad. I enjoy the beauty of fall, but in the back of my mind I know something worse is just around the corner. But then…. I read John 4:35 and it spoke to my heart. I think about the people in the community around my church, across the state, throughout the world. With all the craziness going on today… hostages snatched from their homes, countries viciously fighting, natural disasters destroying entire communities across multiple states, a shambolic election year…. it is so hard to see any potential for good.
Similar to our physical surroundings, the spiritual state in which we currently live may seem to be dull and drab, fading away from the beauty it was before, alluding to the coming of something dark, cold, and harsh. However, there is a positive side to this change we are seeing and experiencing. With Autumn comes the harvest. Our physical bodies will be nourished through the winter with the harvest of fruits and vegetables, so we gather what we need to move forward. Autumn may look like the beginning of death when in reality it actually sustains life.
The Gospel of John records Jesus saying,
“Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
However, in the spiritual realm, we are overlooking the harvest that is ripe for the picking.
Lift up your eyes and look at the community around you. Do you see people concerned about the future? Are they filled with dread as the world around them seems to be falling apart? Have they wandered away from the Church and God? Are there folks who don’t even know Jesus? That is the harvest Jesus called us to gather. All of us!! Not just the pastor and deacons. You, me, the young mother feeding a toddler Cheerios across the aisle, the widow with the stellar soprano voice, the old guy snoring three pews back, the teenagers giggling in the balcony.
Truly the harvest is white and ready to be gathered. What are you doing to help bring in the harvest?
