Last night I caught up with my Senior Pastor and told him about a lesson I had heard a few months ago. Then, today I was speaking with a friend and I thought about it some more – I tried to condense it, but it’s just too good and totally worth the read, I promise! The lesson, from Nancy Leigh DeMoss (I know, go figure), goes as follows:
Now, I want to talk for a few moments about the process of seeking God, the process of revival. Hosea chapter 10, verse 12 is a verse that will be familiar to many of you, but it speaks of the process of revival.
Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness." S-O-W, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed" or your fallow "ground." It's a farming analogy here—sowing, reaping, and breaking up, plowing up, the unplowed ground. "For it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you" (NIV).
You say, "How long are we supposed to seek? This week, next week, twelve weeks? That seems like a long time in today's way of thinking. "Seek the LORD until he comes and showers" or rains "righteousness on you."
Obviously, it takes time to get a harvest. A process is required. You can't just throw seed on the ground and expect to wake up the next morning and have a harvest. There's a process involved. You can't bypass any step and expect to have the end result that you're looking for, and what's the first part of the process?
Now, they're not listed in order in this verse. The first part of the process is that breaking up your unplowed ground—the plowing process, the most time-consuming part of the process.
You don't see the fruit, you don't see the reward while you're plowing, but you've got to do it. You can't miss this step. What is the process of plowing? It's the process of preparing the soil to receive the seed, a picture of preparing our hearts.
Plowing—preparing the soil of our hearts. Our hearts get so hardened by just living out in this world as we do, pursuing everything we pursue other than the Lord, that we need time, and it takes time to prepare our hearts, the soil of our hearts, to seek the Lord.
There are two stages of preparing the soil for the seed before the seed can be sown. The plowing—the first part of the process is the actual plowing, and that's when they're turning over the soil. They bring this tractor out with this big plow attached to it, and the plow goes down into the ground. This is the deepest part of the work. The plow has to go eight to ten inches down into the soil.
Now, if that soil's been packed down, it's tough work, and it takes a hard, strong instrument. You can feel the tractor pulling this plow as it's getting deep enough down into the soil to turn over the soil. All that hard soil on the top is turned over, and that good, fresh soil that's underneath the surface is brought up to the top.
The plowing time of year feels like you get a fresh start—fresh soil. Wouldn't you like to have fresh soil in your heart, a heart that's receptive and tender toward the Lord? That requires plowing up the soil, and it's so important that the plow go deep enough into the earth. If it just skims across the surface, you're not going to get the best soil.
We tend to want God to revive us, but do it quick. Get this over with. Get the hard part over with quickly. We don't want God to go down to deep into our hearts. What might He uncover there? Yuck!
What might come to the surface? That can be scary, and can't you imagine that if the soil eight to ten inches deep there had feelings, it could say, "Ow! This hurts! Why don't you leave me alone? I was comfortable down here. Things were just fine till this plow came along and turned everything upside down in my life."
There will be times in the process of revival when you will think, "Why did I ever get into this? Why don't we just leave well enough alone? Why do we have to dig all this up? Why this plowing process? This hurts!"
You want a harvest of righteousness? You want to experience the joy of personal revival? You've got to let the plow do its work.
Now, that's just the first part of breaking up the fallow or the unplowed ground. The second part is the harrowing process, and that's where they come back with another instrument that goes across the newly plowed up soil and breaks up all the clods. It's the refining part of the process and breaks that soil up into fine particles so that it will be just ready for the seed to come into it. It makes the soil smooth, and again, this process can be painful.
You've got those clods that are being broken up, and there are clods in our lives. There are tough places. There are hard places. There are thorny places.
There are stony places that need to be broken up, and I'll just tell you, it hurts when the Spirit of God starts to do His plowing and harrowing work in our lives. We feel exposed. We're not sure we want to go through this, but if you resist the plowing process, you'll never reach a harvest of righteousness.
Now this process requires patience—plowing, then planting, then waiting, cultivating, keeping the weeds out, the whole process of waiting for a harvest. There's a whole season, most of a year involved. You have to wait, and at times, it seems like nothing's happening. There'll be times that you're seeking the Lord when you'll say, "I tried it. It just doesn't work."
Wait. The plowing part's going to be long, and at times, it will be hard. I'm just warning you, not so that you'll get scared away, but so that you can anticipate—this is normal. This is okay. This is a good part of the process. It's a necessary part of the process.
Let me ask if you would just be willing to trust God with your life. Say, "Lord, I trust that You know what You're doing, that Your Spirit knows how deep to go and how refined those clods need to be and what needs to be brought to the surface," and say, "Lord, I will let you do whatever You know is needed in my life."
I want to tell you, if you will be patient, if you'll wait on the Lord, if you'll let Him do that work—and by the way, you can't do it yourself. It's God who has to do this. The farmer can do everything right, but ultimately it's dependent on God to send the rain and the sun and to bring about the harvest. It's supernatural, but as you wait on the Lord, as you let Him plow up the unplowed places of your heart and sow the seed of His Word in the soil of your heart, you have the promise that there will be a harvest of righteousness.
i'm torn as to which part of the process i am in right now... hmm... i think the soils been turned multiple times and now i'm letting the roots take hold, it's the cultivating point, i think? or maybe refining the clods? hmm... not sure, but i do know that when this harvest is complete it will look awesome :)
Now, I want to talk for a few moments about the process of seeking God, the process of revival. Hosea chapter 10, verse 12 is a verse that will be familiar to many of you, but it speaks of the process of revival.
Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness." S-O-W, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed" or your fallow "ground." It's a farming analogy here—sowing, reaping, and breaking up, plowing up, the unplowed ground. "For it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you" (NIV).
You say, "How long are we supposed to seek? This week, next week, twelve weeks? That seems like a long time in today's way of thinking. "Seek the LORD until he comes and showers" or rains "righteousness on you."
Obviously, it takes time to get a harvest. A process is required. You can't just throw seed on the ground and expect to wake up the next morning and have a harvest. There's a process involved. You can't bypass any step and expect to have the end result that you're looking for, and what's the first part of the process?
Now, they're not listed in order in this verse. The first part of the process is that breaking up your unplowed ground—the plowing process, the most time-consuming part of the process.
You don't see the fruit, you don't see the reward while you're plowing, but you've got to do it. You can't miss this step. What is the process of plowing? It's the process of preparing the soil to receive the seed, a picture of preparing our hearts.
Plowing—preparing the soil of our hearts. Our hearts get so hardened by just living out in this world as we do, pursuing everything we pursue other than the Lord, that we need time, and it takes time to prepare our hearts, the soil of our hearts, to seek the Lord.
There are two stages of preparing the soil for the seed before the seed can be sown. The plowing—the first part of the process is the actual plowing, and that's when they're turning over the soil. They bring this tractor out with this big plow attached to it, and the plow goes down into the ground. This is the deepest part of the work. The plow has to go eight to ten inches down into the soil.
Now, if that soil's been packed down, it's tough work, and it takes a hard, strong instrument. You can feel the tractor pulling this plow as it's getting deep enough down into the soil to turn over the soil. All that hard soil on the top is turned over, and that good, fresh soil that's underneath the surface is brought up to the top.
The plowing time of year feels like you get a fresh start—fresh soil. Wouldn't you like to have fresh soil in your heart, a heart that's receptive and tender toward the Lord? That requires plowing up the soil, and it's so important that the plow go deep enough into the earth. If it just skims across the surface, you're not going to get the best soil.
We tend to want God to revive us, but do it quick. Get this over with. Get the hard part over with quickly. We don't want God to go down to deep into our hearts. What might He uncover there? Yuck!
What might come to the surface? That can be scary, and can't you imagine that if the soil eight to ten inches deep there had feelings, it could say, "Ow! This hurts! Why don't you leave me alone? I was comfortable down here. Things were just fine till this plow came along and turned everything upside down in my life."
There will be times in the process of revival when you will think, "Why did I ever get into this? Why don't we just leave well enough alone? Why do we have to dig all this up? Why this plowing process? This hurts!"
You want a harvest of righteousness? You want to experience the joy of personal revival? You've got to let the plow do its work.
Now, that's just the first part of breaking up the fallow or the unplowed ground. The second part is the harrowing process, and that's where they come back with another instrument that goes across the newly plowed up soil and breaks up all the clods. It's the refining part of the process and breaks that soil up into fine particles so that it will be just ready for the seed to come into it. It makes the soil smooth, and again, this process can be painful.
You've got those clods that are being broken up, and there are clods in our lives. There are tough places. There are hard places. There are thorny places.
There are stony places that need to be broken up, and I'll just tell you, it hurts when the Spirit of God starts to do His plowing and harrowing work in our lives. We feel exposed. We're not sure we want to go through this, but if you resist the plowing process, you'll never reach a harvest of righteousness.
Now this process requires patience—plowing, then planting, then waiting, cultivating, keeping the weeds out, the whole process of waiting for a harvest. There's a whole season, most of a year involved. You have to wait, and at times, it seems like nothing's happening. There'll be times that you're seeking the Lord when you'll say, "I tried it. It just doesn't work."
Wait. The plowing part's going to be long, and at times, it will be hard. I'm just warning you, not so that you'll get scared away, but so that you can anticipate—this is normal. This is okay. This is a good part of the process. It's a necessary part of the process.
Let me ask if you would just be willing to trust God with your life. Say, "Lord, I trust that You know what You're doing, that Your Spirit knows how deep to go and how refined those clods need to be and what needs to be brought to the surface," and say, "Lord, I will let you do whatever You know is needed in my life."
I want to tell you, if you will be patient, if you'll wait on the Lord, if you'll let Him do that work—and by the way, you can't do it yourself. It's God who has to do this. The farmer can do everything right, but ultimately it's dependent on God to send the rain and the sun and to bring about the harvest. It's supernatural, but as you wait on the Lord, as you let Him plow up the unplowed places of your heart and sow the seed of His Word in the soil of your heart, you have the promise that there will be a harvest of righteousness.
i'm torn as to which part of the process i am in right now... hmm... i think the soils been turned multiple times and now i'm letting the roots take hold, it's the cultivating point, i think? or maybe refining the clods? hmm... not sure, but i do know that when this harvest is complete it will look awesome :)
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