BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES

Ps. 126:5-6
      It's Fall, the time of harvest, the time when the fruits of labor are gathered. Here in the Sandhills, ranchers are getting calves ready for the sale barn, hay is being baled and other crops are being gathered.
      One of the Festivals for Israel, the Feast of Ingathering , described in Exodus 23:16 and 34:22, was a joyous time of thanksgiving for God's blessings at harvest.
Our text from the Psalms likens the physical gathering of ripened grains to that of the reaping the harvest of our spiritual efforts in service to our Lord. Also, as in the parable of the Sower and the Soils (Matthew 13), we are reminded that the Seed, as it is sown, falls on different sorts of soils, which have an effect on the growth and productivity of the seed at Harvest.
        No matter where your field lies, whether in city, town or country, you cannot expect any harvest unless and until you sow the Seed. We may spend years sowing the Seed and waiting for the Harvest...during that time, there is still work to be done in the field. Growing up on a cotton farm in Southeast Missouri, there was plenty of field work that took place between planting and harvest!
        The Apostle Paul reminded the Believers in the Corinthian Church that the sower and the waterer had a common interest in the harvest and that it is God who gives the increase. (1Cor. 3:5-9).  Seed, faithfully sown and fields dutifully tended will reap a harvest in its time, and we are in this together.
         The natural law of God dictates that (1) We reap WHAT we sow, (2) We reap MORE than we sow, (3) We reap AFTER we sow. We reap nothing if we sow nothing. May what we sow cause us to rejoice at the Harvest!
        Knowles Shaw was meditating on Psalm 126:5-6 when he wrote Bringing In the Sheaves, back in 1874. George Minor in 1880, set the words to the familiar tune still sung today.