Autumn- A time for reflection

I love the change of seasons. You have to love them if you live in New England–it would be regional sacrelidge if you didn’t. Really though, I love all the changes that come with fall. It seems like a season for re-evaluating your life. Thoughts become a little more introspective as you don warm sweaters, curl up in front of a fireplace, and drink something hot. Thoughts turn to the harvest. Sowing and reaping. Especially if you are from an agricultural family, you realize that what you have sown all year, you will reap in this season. This Monday, my father begins harvesting his cranberry bogs and all of the work he did all year will be hauled away in trucks for Ocean Spray to make into juices. He will be reaping the fruit of a years labor.

So this got me thinking about what I can plan to harvest someday in my many relationships.  

Of utmost concern should be my relationship with my God. Am I sowing the seeds of  meaningful, prolonged times of digging into and studying God’s word? Am I spending time in prayer? Waiting on Him and trusting His loving guidance in my life. Believing that He will work out all of the details of my life for His glory and my good? If I am neglecting my spiritual life, all of my other relationships will suffer. 

If you have a troubled marriage, or are at war with a member of your family or church, consider this:

You cannot love others if you do not love God. Love for God is determined by how much love I have for others.  1 John 4:20 tells me there is a litmus test I can use to tell how much I love others. It says “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates  his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 

I am  not talking about loving those who are loving toward me. Those are the easy people to love. Even the unsaved can do that.

I am talking about loving that annoying person. The person who is ungodly and immature. The one with a sharp tongue–you know, the  self appointed “righteousness police” who bestows their gems of wisdom on unsuspecting victims like a drive by shooting.  Yup, even them. 

And the love I am talking about is not just a plastered on smile and “hope–they–don’t–get–too–close” kind of love.  It is rendering a blessing when you are insulted. It is responding in meekness when you are provoked and have the power to expose that person for what they are. It is blessing that person, and giving them good things that they do not deserve, because ultimately we know that this is exactly what God did for us. He reached out for our good, when we hated Him. He sends rain on the just and the unjust.  

It is a fervent, supernatural love. The unconditional agape love that loves the unlovely person for God’s glory and that persons good.  A love that sees the potential in another. A love that wants what God wants– for that person to live for God’s glory someday. “By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”

Unresolved problems with other people, unwillingness to restore broken relationships and ongoing feuds are a result of our own lack of love for God.  They show a heart that is prideful, independent and self–ruling. Instead of embracing our hard situations as a chance to glorify God through this suffering, we sometimes resort to discontentment ( God, I don’t like what you have given me), self pity (God, I deserve better than this) or  envy and evil speakings against others ( I am going to get even!) . These  are all HUGE WARNING signs that something in my spiritual life is way out of whack.  Actions always betray our beliefs. Or to paraphrase Ken Collier, “You do what you do, and you say what you say, because you believe what you believe about God and His glory.

So, if you are reaping broken relationships, bitterness and sourness of spirit, lack of joy and peace, or a vengeful spirit toward someone, you may want to do some self evaluation. What are you “sowing?” 

Are you sowing unloving thoughts? Are you holding a grudge? Are you envious of others abilities and ministries? Are you unwilling to reconcile a relationship when you know you have hurt someone? Too proud to say you were wrong?  If you know you are sowing these things, now is the time to uproot them before they take hold of your life and you become “entangled” in sins deceitfulness. We are told to have a conscience “void of offense” toward God and man. 

We will surely reap what we have sown.