The author Liz Curtis Higgs comes to mind when I think about harvest. She wrote “The Parable of the Lily”, and “The Parable of the Sunflower”.
In the Parable of the Lily, the little girl gets a mysterious package one day, and opens an “ugly” bulb. Disappointed by the package, she sits it on a shelf in the cellar and forgets about it. She finds it later and throws it out, only to discover on Easter morning that it became a beautiful Lily because her father continued to water and care for it.
How often does God do the same for us? Our reap is better than what we sowed because God continued to work in the background even when we did not.
In “The Parable of the Sunflower”, the farmer’s son plants sunflowers with the goal of growing stalks that will reach all the way to Heaven. He works tirelessly to care for his sunflowers. He becomes incredibly saddened when the sunflowers do not survive the winter. The farmer helps him to see the harvest that is found in all the seeds that are left behind to replant.
Our harvest may not always look like we want it to. An “ugly” bulb may not yield anything exciting or plentiful for a while, but we know that regardless of what the harvest looks like, God calls us to keep working the fields. The job is not done. We have to sow the seeds for others to know God is.