The air is becoming crisp. Fog hugs the grass and trees in the mornings. Leaves are slowly turning from green to orange and red. The cornstalks are browning and it’s time to bring out the combine harvesters and store up the feed for the winter. Harvest time is here.
It’s my favorite time of the year. I love the bright colored leaves, the apples (particularly the caramel ones), the pumpkins, and the smell of wood smoke. The days turn colder and many turn to their fireplaces to warm their homes. It’s the time of year to snuggle up, to bring those close to you in tight and prepare for winter. It’s a time we should be celebrating the hard work of the year and relaxing as we head into the holidays and the joy of family time together.
But I don’t feel that as much this year. I feel like I’m still back in Spring, churning up ground, digging the holes, pulling weeds and standing in the hot sun watering the crops. I’m still in the trenches of the back breaking work of sowing, and I don’t see when I’ll be able reap the joys of all that work. It can be frustrating and disheartening. And then I remember that well worn quote from Ecclesiastes:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
But there is an even more beautiful part to this passage that comes just after this:
I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end (Eccles 3:10-11).
So I continue to toil in the field of potty training my very stubborn three-year-old, and I struggle to get through to my ten-year-old that a lego set is not worth crying over. I work to maintain a functioning, clean house, and I trudge along through new and multiple responsibilities in my career. But I am reminded that in these moments, I want the end goal, and want it now, but that is not mine to decide. I have “eternity in my heart” and I want my children to already be kind, loving and knowledgeable, and my house to already be clean, and I want to have already mastered the tasks and provide clear leadership in the workplace. But none of that happens without work. The work of raising saints. The work of caring for our surroundings and home. The work of studying and learning and experimenting. We choose everyday to toil in the fields of home and family and work. And while we cannot feel a crispness in the air or see changing leaves to know when the season will change, we trust that God has that well in hand, and we know the end goal. We toil in the fields of Earth not to reap our final harvest here, but to reap the ultimate joyful harvest in union with Christ. We toil for Heaven.
