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Maple trees stand ready to burst forth with golden-bronze highlights.
Beechnuts tickle the leaves as they fall to the ground.
Red tinges the leaves of the burning bushes.
Pumpkin patches set ablaze with orange, plump fruit.
Cornfields ripe for gathering.

My favorite time of year. Fall. It always brings to mind the seasonal word harvest.

Nature goes through its seasons, as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (NKJV)

Just as nature, we, as Christians, have circumstances that bring rain, sunshine, heat, cold, storm, calm, dryness, fire, and flood. Our aim is to always work toward having a spiritual harvest, no matter what the circumstantial season.

But how do we produce the luscious harvest God desires for our lives?

God once whispered to my heart…

“If the ground is not turned, I cannot plant My seeds. A life as a lovely green meadow with its abundance of wild flowers is a fair picture of beauty. But there’s more to be had from the rich soil lying beneath the surface blanket of a lovely green pasture. Cultivating this meadow can produce a harvest of fruit, of nourishment, of good things for others.

“The Hand of the One tilling the soil is the One Who loves it the most and sees the greatest potential in it for a harvest. The roots of unwanted growth beneath the surface must be ripped out that the ground might be tilled and furrowed. This gives room to accept the seeds of new growth and eventually welcome a beautiful, golden field of harvest, waving its ripened grain in the breeze.

“A life in the Hands of the One guiding the plow will display a fruitful meadow. When it is uprooted and turned over, it welcomes the plantings of the Master Husbandman and gladdens the hearts of others with its lovely field of harvest.”

What is damaging the harvest in your life? Hmmm. Do you have any roots of unwanted growth? I know I do.

Any roots of bitterness, unforgiveness, pride, jealousy, judging, gossip, complaining, doubt, worry, or hypocrisy, among other things, will destroy the possibility of an abundant, spiritual growth and harvest. The roots of unwanted growth must be ripped out in order to have good soil.

Jesus explained the good soil in the Parable of the Sower, “But the good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a plentiful harvest for God - thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as was planted in their hearts.” (Mark 4:20 TLB)


What are you harvesting? Is the soil of your heart producing what it should? Or maybe you have a mixed crop, having planted negative seeds in with the positive seeds?

God told Israel, “Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.” (Deut. 22:9 NIV)

Reproducing the character of God in our lives requires the planting of His Seed-Word in our hearts, not the seeds the world spits at us. There can only be one Seed in our hearts!

Don’t like the crop you’re growing? Maybe its time to check those seed bags! Paul tells us, “Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds!” (Gal. 6:7-8a MSG)

If we want our lives to have an abundant harvest spilling over with ripe fruit, we need to rip out the old roots, weed, and plant God’s seeds. Then, we will see a bumper crop at harvest time, for “the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.” (Gal. 6:8b MSG)

“A life in the Hands of the One guiding the plow will display a fruitful meadow.” May your life be cultivated by the Husbandman that it may “produce a harvest of fruit, of nourishment, of good things for others.” And may your harvest be plentiful!



Today's post is part of the ChristianWriters.com blog chain on the topic of harvest. For other great posts, check out the list in the right sidebar.

Please join me over at LivingBetterat50+ for my new place of monthly devotionals.

Fresh air. That’s the topic for the Christianwriters.com blog chain for June. (You can read the other entries for the month in the right sidebar.) I thought about skipping it. Nothing came to mind. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zippity-doo-dah!

But on the day I was going to beg off, I opened the windows in the house. What a beautiful day! Low humidity. Crystal blue sky. Wispy white clouds. Gentle breeze. And the sweet serenade of the birds’ trilling.

I turned the window fan on in the kitchen to bring in that wonderful aroma of fresh air. Ahhh! One of my favorite things! My body loves that cool, clean, fresh air. I love spring and fall when those crisp breezes come to visit. My whole body smiles and sighs a big thank you!

As I sat down to write, my mind wandered back many years, MANY years, to before I began school. My parents and I lived with my grandparents on a large, self-sustained farm. That means we had pigs, horses, cattle, dairy cows, chickens, turkeys (they really are dumb), ducks, and the obligatory barn cats. We even had our own dairy, orchard, flower and vegetable gardens, and great places to run and play.

One of my most precious memories of those days is of my sweet grandmother. She had one of the workmen plant a bazillion jonquils and daffodils along the hillside by the creek. Every spring, as the frozen stream melted into new life, giggling up bubbles over the rocks, the flowers burst forth into a sea of yellow.

At one point, the stream split and came back together, creating a small, I mean tiny, island. Granny had a footbridge built to the little island. We would pack our lunch and go to the island for a picnic. I remember the brisk air, fresh and redolent with a multitude of blossoms.

These days, I’m not as fortunate to enjoy the outdoors. Besides weather changes and conditions, numerous other things aggravate the fibromyalgia that affects my body. I also cannot bear to be in a place where the air is too warm, stuffy, or stagnant. I feel smothered.

Have you ever been in a place where the air hung so close, so stagnant, so confining that you could barely catch your breath and you craved fresh air?

The same is true of my spirit; it hates to be smothered and stagnant with a myriad of troubles and attitudes. It needs the breath of the Holy Spirit to breathe fresh life into it. Someone once said, “Breath is Spirit. The act of breathing is Living.”

After fashioning man, God drew near him as His Spirit hovered and “blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7 Masoretic Text)

The breath of living. That breath of God, that divine inspiration, still infuses man, supplying him with the vital breath of the Lord’s likeness. He is our Life, the very breath of our souls.

The Lord “Himself gives life and breath to everything,” (Acts 17:25a TLB) “the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God, and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10 TLB)

(Some of this is from The Breath of the Almighty. You can read it here.)

In the midst of writing this, I made one of my daily comments for everyone to have a good day on Facebook, “Happy Monday, everyone! Smile! May your day be filled with progress, provision, encouragement, and good surprises! Enjoy! :D”

My cyber-friend Dana Pratola responded, “Wow, Lynn, it’s always nice to see one of your encouragements on here. It’s like a breath of fresh air. ♥” I laughed and asked her if she was part of our blog chain. I thought she was teasing me.

But isn’t that what we are supposed to be: a breath of fresh air to others? If the Lord has shared His precious breath with us, shouldn’t we be that holy, fresh breath to others who may feel smothered and stagnant? Shouldn’t we be encouraging rather than whining and complaining?

Is your spirit smothered with circumstances, stagnant with negative attitudes? Have you allowed the Almighty to breathe His Life back into your spirit? Can you say as Job did, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4 NKJV)?

May you know that precious breath of fresh, Eternal Life as He infuses it into your body, soul, and spirit.



P.S. I happened to read on a new cyber-friend’s blog, The Widow Lady, about a fund for kids, The Fresh Air Fund. I couldn’t resist passing it along...

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. Nearly 10,000 New York City children enjoy free Fresh Air Fund programs annually. In 2010, close to 5,000 children visited volunteer host families in suburbs and small town communities across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada. 3,000 children also attended five Fresh Air camps on a 2,300-acre site in Fishkill, New York. The Fund’s year-round camping program serves an additional 2,000 young people each year.

Explosive creative power! Light. Water. Firmament of heaven. Earth and planets. Nourishment. Wildlife.

And then…

God “formed the man out of the dust of the ground.” (Gen. 2:7 Masoretic Text) The Hebrew word used here for ‘formed’ is ‘yatsar,’ a potter’s term that means to squeeze into shape, mold into a form as a potter sculpting, individuals at conception, frame, and so on.

The word for ‘ground’ is ‘adamah,’ which also means soil as for building, husbandman, husbandry, and so on. It comes from the word ‘'adam,’ meaning to show blood in the face, turn rosy or flush, ruddy, reddened, and so on.

From this word comes another word ‘'adam,’ which is the word for man, mankind, human being, common sort, or of low degree.

From this last definition comes ‘'Adam,’ as a proper name. Adam’s name reflected his standing, a man of low degree from the redness of earth’s clay. Out of the womb of the ‘adamah,’ the soil of building, God shaped the ‘'adam.’

God fashioned man, as if drawing near to form him with His own hands out of the earth, as a potter in total absorption with his clay, taking time to sculpt him. This evokes the image of Jehovah having a personal relationship with man as His special creation, as a hands-on project.

I imagine the Potter taking His time with His most prized possession, and through His Word, molded here, patted there, adding more in this spot, a little less in that spot. Can’t you just imagine that, when God finished, Adam looked like one of Michelangelo’s statues or like the image of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Created with no life yet, man received another touch from the Creator. The Spirit of God hovered over him and “blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7 Masoretic Text)

‘Breath’ in Hebrew means a puff, wind, angry or vital breath, divine inspiration, soul, spirit, and so on. That breath of God, that divine inspiration infused man, supplying him with the vital breath of His likeness.

I can imagine God whispering in Adam’s ear, “I am your Life, the very breath of your soul,” and Adam sitting up, saying, as Job did, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33:4 NKJV)

What God commanded Ezekiel in his vision to prophesy over the dry bones in the valley sounds as if God could have pronounced it over Adam, “Behold, I will cause breath and spirit to enter you, and you shall live; and I will lay sinews upon you and bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin, and I will put breath and spirit in you, and you [dry bones] shall live; and you shall know, understand, and realize that I am the Lord.” (Ezek. 37:5-6 Amp)

Just as God gave mankind His breath of physical life, so He endows us with the breath of the Spirit, placing His Eternal Life within us through His Son. As “He Himself gives life and breath to everything,” (Acts 17:25a TLB) “the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God, and the breath of all mankind,” (Job 12:10 TLB) and it is “the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.” (Job 32:8 NIV)

God created us and His purpose was to have an eternal relationship with His creations. Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17 NIV) Therefore, the only way for us to have that everlasting relationship with the Father is to allow the Holy Spirit to infuse us with that vital breath of His likeness, His divine inspiration, His Eternal breath of Life.

Have you allowed the Almighty to breathe Life into your spirit? Can you say as Job, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life”?

May you know that precious breath of Eternal Life as He infuses it into your body, soul, and spirit.