Sowing and Reaping in Northeastern Colorado
Recently, I was invited to speak at a women’s ministry meeting at Arapahoe Road Baptist Church. The theme for our meeting was: “Sowing and Reaping in northeastern Colorado”. As I was preparing for my missions presentation, the Lord led me to John 4:34-37: “My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying, ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.” As I read the words, “…the sower and the reaper may be glad together”, God reminded me that I had enjoyed the blessing of experiencing this promise last year.
In the summer of 2008, Calvary Baptist Church in Fort Morgan, Colorado hosted their annual VBS. The Lord led me to plan a strategy for reaching out to the ladies of the community who had entrusted us with their children for that week. I advertised for a Christian parenting class, fully anticipating that God would do something great. I asked God not for numbers but for people who needed to hear a special Word from Him, especially about salvation. I planned to share the gospel message in a different way each night, through video clips, testimonies and Scripture verses.
The Lord blessed me with 6 to 7 ladies who came to the meetings faithfully each night. A few of the ladies were strong Christians and already involved in a church. However, there was one woman, a lady named Jackie, who was searching for a church home. One evening during our class, we were focused on a lady whose teenage daughter was in the early stages of rebellion. We began to talk about ways this woman could share the gospel with her daughter. As I began reading Scripture verses and writing them on the chalkboard, Jackie became visibly emotional. As I ministered to her, she explained that she wasn’t sure that she had ever accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. I explained the plan of salvation and encouraged her to go to the Lord for assurance of her salvation. She wrote down the Scripture verses that were written on the board and indicated that she would like to spend time with the Lord privately that night. When I called her the next morning, Jackie fought back tears as she shared with me that she had made a decision to follow Christ and give Him her entire life. How amazed I was as we rejoiced together as new sisters in Christ! God had indeed done great things through the parenting class at VBS.
One year later, my son, Samuel, started piano lessons with a local piano teacher who also taught Jackie’s kids. After a lesson one day, I was visiting with Mrs. Washburn and she shared that she had just led one of her young adult students to the Lord. She was overjoyed as she stated that sometimes God gives us the privilege of reaping what others have already sown. She gave the example of a parent to whom she had been witnessing for over a year but said that God had given someone else the blessing of seeing this lady come to faith in Christ. As we continued to talk, I realized that the young woman about whom she was speaking was none other than Jackie! How amazed we were to discover that she had been sharing the Lord with Jackie for over a year and God had allowed me to be in the right place at the right time to reap the harvest that had been planted by another and watered by the Lord! God’s promises are true: “the sower and reaper were glad together.”
The Lord has given me the incredible privilege of mentoring and discipling Jackie over the last year and a half. She inspires and encourages me with her natural ability to share her faith and reach out to her community out of the abundance of love the Lord has given her. Every time I hear my dear friend speak about God’s grace in her life, I am reminded of Galatians 6:9: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” What an incredible privilege God has given us to be His workers: the task of sowing, reaping and being involved in His eternal plan. As 2 Corinthians 9:6 exhorts: “let us sow generously so that we might reap generously.”
