The sowing of a seed is such a common thing that it sometimes escapes us how marvelous and counter-intuitive it is. Imagine being asked to sow seeds if you had never heard of the idea or seen it done before!

With a field of nothing but lifeless dirt all scratched into furrowed rows, and a sagging bag of seed slung over your shoulder, you are told to spend your day sweatily bending over the field dropping seed everywhere. Most children are taught from their earliest years to avoid littering valuable resources in the dirt. Yet here you are. Not only are you scattering these tiny, seemingly useless seeds, but you are then expected to water the whole affair. Any seeds you could still see are washed down into cracks and under sod clumps or simply eclipsed by the mud around them.

What an exercise in futility. Whatever small value the seeds may have had is now ruined, dead, dirty, and invisible.

We all know what actually happens next, however. Those seeds hold the miracle of germination and life. The barren earth will soon be a carpet of green shoots and broadening leaves. Crops outweighing the seeds by many orders of magnitude will waive in the summer breezes and ripen in the fall sun. The labor, as it turned out, was not in vain.

We do not have the chance to see into the life to come. We cannot peer across the fog-veiled waters of the Jordan. We live in a world of sowing, not reaping, and the nature of the harvest is unseen. Like seeds, our lives must be laid down steadfastly, immovably, a willing submission to the will of the Father. We abound in His works, even as that abounding consumes the years and resources of our lives. It is not without risk. Is dying to ourselves really the path of wisdom? Can anything good come from being spent in the dirt furrows of the Father’s field?

The answer to this question lies in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as the first fruits of those who follow after Him. In Him, we see the hope of the harvest realized. He sowed His body and blood and was raised up in glory. His life and death were not in vain – they were the victorious foundation upon which eternal reaping and reward are built.

So it is with us. Though we will only have one life to sow, and no chance to turn back time once we have laid it down, yet we are unafraid. We know that the work of Jesus has secured the resurrection of Jesus. By faith, we are made to stand before the Father on the same basis as the Son – according to His merits and not our own. As the Father has already accepted the Son, so, in the Son, He will and must accept us as well. In this great hope we strive, according to His power that works mightily within us, knowing that our toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Neither law, sin, nor death itself have any say in the matter.