Tuesday, September 13: Isaiah 17- God Gives the Harvest

There is an interesting NT verse: I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow (1Corinthians 3:6-7). Paul uses it to speak about how the church grows, but he draws his picture from life.  We plant and we tend the garden but God provides the increase. As humans we have a responsibility to work and do the necessary things, but God gives the harvest.

As I read about Damascus, I saw the above principle at work. Check out verses 10-11: You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain. Damascus provides the finest plants and under their caring eye they seem to grow wonderfully.  However, at harvest, nothing.

From an earthly perspective Damascus does everything right, but the yield is zilch.  Why? Because they forgot and forsook God, their Savior and Rock. And because they forgot God, God did NOT provide the harvest.

I jumped from Damascus to my life. I’m pretty good at taking responsibility and doing what I need to do, but I am prone to forget that God provides the harvest, because I am taking credit for what “I produced/did.” 

My morning with God has been a timely reminder that God provides the harvest, not me. My second morning reminder is that my #1 job is remaining relationally connected with the Lord. I DON’T want to fall into the Damascus-Trap of forgetting and forsaking the Lord…

Lord, thank You for these reminders this morning. I am prone to wander…

O to grace how great a debtor; Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.*

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

 

*Come, Thou Font of Every Blessing. Words by Robert Robinson, 1758.