WE place some sweet-pea seed in our garden, and by-and-bye gather the bright-colored and pleasant-scented blossoms, so familiar to us all. We lay some soft thistledown in the hedgerow, and after a while the prickly leaves appear. We reap what we sow. We do not ever expect to find thistles where we sowed our sweet peas, nor sweet peas where we laid the thistle-down. In our picture the harvest has come, the reapers are busy, and those also who bind up the sheaves. What was sown is reaped. The beautiful ears of corn and the yellow sheaves would never have been found in the field had not good seed been sown there.
One of the most solemn texts in the Scriptures is about sowing and reaping. It is this: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” (Gal. 6:7,87Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:7‑8)). This text seems to be especially addressed to the young. It is true of our spirits, souls, and bodies, true for time and eternity.
He or she who sows to the flesh by selfish ways will reap discontent, while the spirit of self-denial will produce a happy harvest. Whatever we sow, that we shall reap, and it would be as vain to expect to find a crop of sweet peas spring up where we laid thistle-down as to look for happiness to arise in our hearts where we have been living to ourselves.
Sometimes we reap almost on the very day that we sow; at other times, years will roll by before the reaping time arrives: but come it will, sooner or later. Many a patient Christian has gone quietly on for many months doing the Lord’s will, and praying for His blessing, and it has seemed almost as if the thing desired would never come. But in due season the reaping came, and the joyful answer to prayer and patient continuance in well-doing was given.
God seems to answer little children’s prayers more quickly than those of grownup people, perhaps because time seems so much longer to us when we are young than when we grow older.
A wise child, having a garden of his own, would ask his father to select the seed for him to sow in it. And the wise children in God’s family ask Him to show them what to do. The secret of happy reaping is doing such things as God likes. Good beginnings make happy endings. The beginning of a thing is the seed. It is frequently the case that, having begun something to please ourselves, we find that we are in a difficulty, and then go to God to be helped. The happy plan is to go to God first of all, and thus to be taught by Him what seed is good. God is good, and hears our prayer, and answers in. His wisdom; but it is too late when the prickly thistle covers the little garden to say, “Oh, I wish I had not sown such seed!”
We must earnestly press upon our dear young readers the importance of beginnings. Each beginning in life is like seed-sowing. Each beginning will have some kind of end. Our desire for you is that the end of what you begin may be happy. We are not thinking of the end for all who love. Christ-heaven with Himself-for that is made certain for us by the death of the Lord. To gain the much fruit of His dear people, and to have them all with Himself by-and-bye, the Lord became the corn of wheat and died, and He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. He shall see all for whom He died with Himself in glory. No, we are not thinking of the end—heaven made sure to us by what the Lord Jesus has done, but of the end of each thing you yourselves begin. This end depends upon what you do, and for it you are responsible. Take, then, the beginnings of things to God in prayer. Ask Him for guidance and help, seek that what you undertake may be according to His word and for His glory, and then you will be happy reapers.