WE GET WHAT WE PLANT

Life is many things.  One of the more fascinating is that it is a constant riddle.  Day by day we are approached with a set of gnarly circumstances.  Our assignment is to decipher information and then negotiate the twists and curves these sets of challenges present.

Life is a full-time job.

From teachers announcing pop quiz to being questioned as to whether one is good enough to make the soccer team to seeking a mate and then an occupation....well, life is surely found to be brimmed with opportunity for the mind-maneuvers.  To exacerbate matters, interruptions of the deepest kind may be found to throw our synchronized world off of its axis.

Jesus knew a secret.  Although he spelled it out, we are to often found to be blind to it.  The way to win is to lose.  Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it, comes right from the lips of the One who mastered life.  He is life.

There seems to be two sorts; those who want life to be alive while struggling to reach it and those who enjoy life to the max because they encounter it day by day.  The former believe they simply drew the short straw.  The latter know a secret; the underlying hope of dailiness is found in giving one's life away to others.  These win by losing.  The former lose by self-focus.

The apostle Paul said it another way; He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly.  He who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.  

Here's the truth about us.  We get what we plant.

If we plant self-centered attention, we get self at the center; plus excessive misery. However, if we plant attention to others then the love we have sown will come back to us because we lost ourselves in giving so that others could be blessed.  We, then, find ourselves targeted by others who enrich our walk.  Life is simple.

We get what we plant.

Find the person obsessed with how bad off they are and I'll show you a very lonely person because they are all about winning...for themselves.  Consistently they are dying in their misery.

Reverse the course, however, and watch the truth of God unfold.  Note the one who is happy and reaching for the welfare of others.  What do you find?  One who is upbeat and moving with a smile.  Why?  These know a secret.

We get what we plant.

Now here is a thing the self-absorbed don't get.  Everyone has their bucket full of misery and disappointment.  The selfish don't believe it.  They think they are the rare few who ache in heart.  Absolutely a self-centered conclusion.

Some of the happiest people I know are so burdened they can hardly get out of the house.  Yet, they do and they do it with a snap to their step and a huge smile on their face.  Why?  They have planted so much joy in others that their harvest is a constant supply of joy in return.

Life just works that way.  Go ahead and whine if you like.  Each of us has our times of hot tears.  All of us hit brick walls where we don't know what to do.  There are no exceptions.  The difference is found in whether we choose to win or lose.  Mark it down....we do choose.  Happiness is a choice...not an inheritance.

Winners win because they give away words of cheer and these words come back. Losers lose because these speak incessantly about how bad life is going.  No words of support return for they didn't sow any.

Don't blame circumstances or people...and certainly not God...because you are pent up in blatant agony.  Every person has a choice.  Everyone has a short straw or two nipping at their heels.  The good news is that, if we believe we get what we plant, we are free to determine what kind of crops we would like.

May joy fill our hearts because we give joy away.

We get what we plant.