Tuesday 31 Jul 2012

Tuesday Reading: John 4:34-38

Key Verse: John 4:36
36  And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

Devotion:
Today just seems to have been one of those days when I have seen many things in God’s Word that I have not considered before and have also seen how they relate to my own life as well. Seeing how God is working in my life directly is a humbling experience because you suddenly get a picture of how our great big God does things for little old me! So when I started reading through this passage I knew that I should be bringing this to you as well.

Jesus had just been talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, the disciples had just returned and see Jesus alone with this foreigner! Then they are told that those people that do all the hard work don’t always get to reap the reward of all of that hard work. Whether they knew what this all meant at the time or not is not what I want to discuss but rather that there are two sides to this relationship. Whilst we would not normally look at this as a normal relationship, the two sides here do need each other to make a whole; hence it is a type of relationship or companionship.

We often look at the people who make us happy as the companions in our life, or the people who we love that should be our companions. In reality, we have many companions when we work together as a society rather than as individuals. If we want to work alone then we are going to find that the work that we do is to no avail because we will not be sharing the results of that work; yes others will get to hear about it and maybe even benefit from it but we gain nothing.

When Jesus was telling the disciples about the combined work of the prophets of old and the work they were doing now, He was showing them that we do not always get to sow and reap, but sometimes just get to do one or the other. When I started my work as a youth leader I thought of the work as being a complete circle, but in reality it is not like that. The way that I see things now is that God is using me to do a whole lot of sowing because He knows something that I do not know. His vocation for me is to sow His seed to the many people that I have been introduced to through working with their children (some of which are adults now). It is rewarding to know that the seeds I am sowing will be gathered at some stage, but in God’s time and not necessarily my time. Patience.

Points to Ponder:
Do you always look to complete things?

Are you trying to complete God’s Work?