Sowing & Reaping

Sometimes it is difficult to wait for things...to see the results and outcome of a project, be it a garden, a painting, a diet, remodeling, or our time invested for the Lord's work.

Within each piece of personal art I share with you there are many processes:

• Brain time (coming up with the concept).  
• Sketching & planning
• Coloring -  the make-it or break-it part - also the most 'dangerous'...because in watercolor, charcoal, pastels and colored pencil, a lovely drawing can be quite easily ruined.  (in acrylics or oils sometimes a mistake can be corrected)  Now in digital art (computer)  the original can be preserved and easily reworked.  Although I have lost work on the computer too.
• Critiquing & Finishing touches
• The Reveal:  the finished work.

There can be great frustration as well as great satisfaction in the whole process.  But unless time is put into the project....nothing will be accomplished or completed.

It's a simple formula:   0 time + 0 effort = Nothing Sown.   Nothing sown is always nothing reaped, whether personal, business or for God. If we do nothing for the Lord, we will not reap bountifully for him.

Sowing is labor, sometimes painful, but the reward is joy.  Psalm 126:6 states, "He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

Sow today what you desire to reap tomorrow, and may your harvest be bountiful.

Laura

Illustration Notes:  The above is a photograph I took of my flowers.  The purpose of this final product was two-fold.  I wanted to try and learn more of the features in my Photoshop computer software.  And second, I wanted to see if I could make this photo look like an oil painting.   It took about an hour, (adding a canvas texture, some filters, and effects and finally some touchups.)  

Lonely Marigolds

You may wonder why I painted such a strange mix of flowers - 2 lonely marigolds in a sea of pink impatiens. First I need to explain something about myself for which my kids and husband laugh at me - if there's a flower growing, even a weed, I never pull it up.  I call them the flowers God planted.  

Last year I was a bit late buying flowers for the window boxes.  By the time I was ready to plant the impatiens, the two little marigold plants had appeared in the window box, seeded from the previous years' plants.  They had not yet flowered, but I recognized them.  So I left them.    The result was what you see above.    Some out-of-place, bright orange blossoms in a sea of serene pink.

Have you ever felt that way in your Christian walk?  Sticking out like the 'lonely little petunia in the onion patch'.  Because we are different in our behavior, by words we speak (or don't speak), our reaction to adversity, our demeanor under pressure, or our unwillingness to compromise our morals - we stick out.

But that's just what God will approve of.  We ARE to BE different.  We are a peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9).  We are God's treasure (Exodus 19:5).   As His treasure, he plants us where He wants us and waits for us to bloom for Him.

And now, here's the rest of this true story about those flowers.   Last year we had a very long, dry, hot summer.   Guess which flowers flourished?   By the end of August, even with ample watering, the impatiens had slowly died off and the marigolds had happily filled in.  The window box was as full of them as if I had planted them there.  But they were not my flowers...they were God's flowers.

May you bloom for God today!
Laura