In The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s fictionalized account of her family’s experiences during the winter of 1880-1881, Almanzo Wilder goes to great lengths to hide his seed wheat because the people in town are running out of food and are in serious trouble. He has understandable concerns that his merchant brother will decide to sell his seed wheat to their potentially starving neighbors, leaving him with the very real possibility of having nothing to plant come spring.

In today’s world, that may seem excessive, but in 1880-1881 in what is now South Dakota, they were in the midst of such a hard winter that repeated blizzards kept the supply trains from getting through. And there were so many trains backed up that it was entirely possible no wheat would arrive until it was too late to plant that spring.

In point of fact, the trains didn’t start running again until May of 1881.

Despite his caution, Almanzo is not heartless. In fact, he and a friend choose to risk their lives by heading out into the open prairie between blizzards, knowing another could strike at any time, on a rumor of a farmer somewhere out there who has wheat. They find the farmer, who reluctantly agrees to sell them sixty bushels of his own seed wheat, and head straight back to town with enough to keep everyone alive until the next supply train manages to come through.

It was this story that made me understand the vital importance of not eating your seed. Almanzo’s seed wheat looks like food to those who are hungry. Laura’s Pa even manages to obtain a bucketful of that very seed. He is a man of integrity, but seeing his wife and children go hungry makes him desperate enough to insist that Almanzo sell him some. And that encounter forces Almanzo to face the question he can no longer avoid: What will happen when the town runs completely out of food, including wheat?

His answer is to follow the rumor about the other farmer. To go looking for more wheat.

One question I remember having the first time I read Laura’s books is, “What’s the difference between regular wheat and seed wheat?”

The basic answer is, “Its purpose.”

So, foundationally, wheat is wheat, but when a farmer sets aside a specific portion of wheat with the intention of planting it, it becomes seed wheat.

So yes, when the townspeople see wheat, especially that winter, they see food.

But when the two farmers see their seed wheat, they see harvests.
With no wheat to sow, they will have no harvest.
And a farmer with no harvest is in serious trouble.
So is the town, because if the farmer has no harvest, the people have no food.

And for Almanzo, this isn’t just any seed wheat or harvest.

This is high-quality seed wheat that he raised himself in Minnesota and then hauled across country by wagon with the express purpose of planting it on his homestead. He is protecting a precious future harvest.

This is the story I remembered recently when thinking about how, in Genesis 26, God told Isaac to stay right where he was during a famine. A famine! “Don’t go to Egypt,” God said. Isaac obeyed, and during that famine he sowed. Then, during that famine, he reaped a hundred-fold harvest.

A hundred-fold harvest during a famine.

You’ve likely heard it preached dozens of times as a powerful example of the benefits of walking by faith, but did you ever think about how everyone else survived that famine?

Were they eating their seed?

We don’t know, but we do know that Isaac sowed when his circumstances argued against it. Even if he’d chosen not to eat his seed, he could have locked it away, saved it until a more promising season. He did not. Instead, he trusted God to come through for him no matter what.

This is exactly what we should do when God puts seed in our hands, giving us instructions on how to handle it (and I’m not just talking money here). How does God see the seed we hold? Is He giving us food to eat, seed to stow away and keep safe for the future, or seed to plant today so that He can multiply it and give us a harvest in due season?

Like Isaac, we need to choose the path of obedience and faith. The issue isn’t whether we eat the seed, stow it, or sow it. The issue is whether we do with it what God intends. When our mentality is, “I can’t afford to plant this because this is all I’ve got!”—when we allow fear to rule us instead of trusting God and doing it His way, we actively choose to put limits on our own future.

If God says, “Eat the seed,” then eat it. If He tells you to stow it, to keep it safe for later, then tuck it away. But if He says to sow it, even in a time of famine, don’t let fear talk you into doing anything else.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C