auction

The Harvest Provides the Seed

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

Farmers today, when they’re ready to plant, either place an order online or dash down to the store, but it wasn’t always that way. 

In previous generations, a man bought seed to plant if he had to, but most farmers kept back seed from their own harvests and held it for the next season’s crops. This is where the phrase “Don’t eat your seed” comes from. If you ate your seed wheat, you had nothing to plant when the time came. 

In a beautiful cycle of sowing and reaping, it was the harvest that provided the seed. 

This law of sowing and reaping still works today. Give (plant seed), get a harvest, give (after returning the tithe of course), receive another harvest, give…

I’ve seen this process so much in my life, but especially in our church’s annual auction. This auction helps fund a variety of missions, outreaches, and assistance projects, and it holds my heart. That first year I had little I could give, but I gave it, and every year since God has enabled me to give even more, to raise even more funds.

Spiritually speaking, my harvest from the seed I sow one year provides seed for me to sow the following year. It’s a miraculous and beautiful thing, and I celebrate it just as joyously as any farmer celebrates successfully getting his fields planted and harvested on time. 

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Let Go of Your Seed!

Tammy M Cardwell2 Comments

Can you plant a seed without letting it go? No.

Our church is coming up fast on a multi-layer event that raises money for our myriad missions and outreach programs, and a while back God led me to donate one of my newest and favorite possessions. I won’t lie; I choked for a moment, but I’ve learned through the years that God never calls me to give up something unless He has something better in mind, a purpose (or multiple purposes) for my actions. Besides, when you plant a seed you get a harvest – as the Bible says, thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.

So the other day I had a thought: “I could bid on it and get it back.” In that moment, I had an epiphany. I didn’t need to. I didn’t want to. I had completely let it go and didn’t even want it back. This revelation led to an interesting conversation with God.

Long story short. Years ago, I’d been called to give away one of my favorite things and I’d done it almost instantly, but begrudgingly. For years (not kidding) I’d had this niggling thought of, “Man, if only I’d not…” In our conversation, God reminded me about that event and pointed out that I HAD NEVER LET GO of that seed. Because I had never truly let go, the seed had never been truly planted – regardless of the fact that it was in the other person’s hands. So I had never received the harvest He had wanted me to have.

So… When God calls you to give something, be it to someone personally, to a ministry, to a charity auction…whatever, LET IT GO. Don’t judge how you think that person should handle it. Don’t dwell on the fact that you don’t have it any more. Don’t let regret hang around. LET. IT. GO.

You cannot plant a seed in the ground if you do not let it go first. You cannot plant a seed in ANY ground if you do not let it go first. And if you don’t have a planted seed you don’t have that seed’s intended harvest.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C