You Reap What You Sow

My church is doing this cool thing—have been for more than a year now. We as a congregation are invited to read a passage of Scripture together. One person from our body has been asked to write a meditation on the passage, so we read that too.

Why I think it’s so cool is that so many in the church are reading the same verses or chapter every day. We can also leave comments so if we want to pass along what impacted us the most, we can.

I had the April 2 mediation. Currently we are reading a Psalm Monday through Friday, and a portion of a chapter in Proverbs on Saturday and Sunday. So the section of Scripture I had was Proverbs 11:20-31.

I have to say, I find the Proverbs difficult to write about because the topic from verse to verse can change. It’s not easy to write in a cohesive way about verses that don’t necessarily hang together.

All that to say, I put more prayer into this meditation than just about anything else I’ve written. Praise God that He hears and answers prayer.

First the verses I was writing about (in the NASB), followed by my meditation.

20 The perverse in heart are an abomination to the LORD,
But the blameless in their walk are His delight.
21 Assuredly, the evil man will not go unpunished,
But the descendants of the righteous will be delivered.
22 As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout
So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
23 The desire of the righteous is only good,
But the expectation of the wicked is wrath.
24 There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more,
And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want.
25 The generous man will be prosperous,
And he who waters will himself be watered.
26 He who withholds grain, the people will curse him,
But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.
27 He who diligently seeks good seeks favor,
But he who seeks evil, evil will come to him.
28 He who trusts in his riches will fall,
But the righteous will flourish like the green leaf.
29 He who troubles his own house will inherit wind,
And the foolish will be servant to the wisehearted.
30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
And he who is wise wins souls.
31 If the righteous will be rewarded in the earth,
How much more the wicked and the sinner! (Proverbs 11:20-31)

Much of Proverbs 11:20-31 could be summed up with the adage, “You reap what you sow.” When I was young, I wanted to reap good things, so I thought the natural course of action was to sow good things.

Consequently, when I was in fifth grade, I decided I should befriend a new student who other kids treated badly. Except, I hadn’t counted on the scorn and derision that would be heaped on me as a result.

That experience was my introduction to the idea that Biblical principles didn’t always “work.”

Of course, I was thinking short term, for the here and now. And I was trying to work the system. I was trying to make good things happen in my life by being “a good Christian.” When the outcome wasn’t what I expected, I bailed. To my shame, I turned from friend to one of the tormentors of that poor, lonely boy.

In reality, I was ignorant of the first verse of this passage—the part that tells us “the LORD abhors those who are perverse in heart.” In the original, “perverse” has the idea of “twisted,” the way I twisted the “reap what you sow” idea into “sow to get what you want.”

We are not to sow in order to get what we want. That’s manipulation. We are not to be generous, as a number of these verses say, because we want to get back more in return.

True generosity isn’t about getting. That’s twisted thinking. Perverse. The thing the LORD abhors.