Sow an act; you reap a habit. Sow a habit; you reap a character. Sow a character; you reap a destiny.
Job concludes his final appeal with a graphic motif utilized throughout the Word. “If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; if I have eaten its fruit without money, or caused its owners to lose their lives; then let thistles grow instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley” (Job 31:38-40). “The field is the world” (Mt 13:38), said the Lord Jesus, full of potential for good or ill, and you are part of that. The believer is a vital portion of God’s vast estate (1 Cor 3:9). Two different kinds of seed result in very different harvests. “For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” (Gal 6:8). We are all sowing, all the time, and the principle that keeps farmers farming is that you get more seed back than you put in. Both the kind of seed and the amount of seed determine the harvest we get (2 Cor 9:6). Of course, God has a vital hand in the crop coming to fruition (1 Cor 3:7). We know nothing of Job’s parents, but wouldn’t be surprised if they sowed God’s truth in his little heart before the devil implanted it with the noxious weeds of selfishness and unbelief. Every time the good seed lands on us, we’re responsible for our reception or rejection of it (Lk 8:11-15). The worst of the weeds—“the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things” (Mk 4:19)—always choke out the good crop. But, Jesus said, good seed can produce as much as 10,000% return—one hundredfold! Was He exaggerating? Of course not! Unknown servants led Moody and Spurgeon, Whitfield and the Wesleys, Finney and Sunday, to Christ. It’s going to be quite the harvest, isn’t it! And you can see that Job’s plantings are still bearing fruit!