This One's For You - Seed and Bread

I recently read the below post on Beth Moore's blog. Beth's insights were so powerful and timely that I wanted to share them with you.

God, please bless each reader as they visit this site today. Give them encouragement and the strength to continue moving down the path You've put them on. Increase their faith and boldness for You. Help them to remember what You've done in the past, and increase their belief in You for the future.
In Jesus' Name,
Amen

Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries Blog
Monday, September 8, 2008
Seed and Bread

Just in case somebody could use the encouragement, I thought I'd pitch something out on the table that God ministered to me this morning then led me to share at staff prayer time. Maybe some of you are like us. We each have some long term prayer requests out there that we're still waiting for God to bring to wild fruition. Like you, we get tempted at times to give up on that thing ever coming to pass even though we were so sure it was God's will and had the support of His Word. Maybe we got what we thought was a vivid word from God about something but now we're confused. Sometimes we really do misinterpret what He said or what His Word promised and God graciously reveals that to us. Other times, however, we let impatience strangle our spirits and near-sightedness steal our vision. We lose sight of the fact that He's using time and subsequent events to bring the word to pass. His point to me recently has been that if I'd live in a greater present reality and awareness of all He's brought to fruition, I will be more patient and full of faith concerning what is still in process. The thing is, we're on to the next request before we've even gotten a chance to sit and savor how He answered the last. Maybe this is too much review for some but I'm one of those kinds of people who needs to constantly relearn things.

God's been reminding me of the powerful words of Isaiah 55:8-11.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

The part He's really been highlighting to me is the "seed for the sower and bread for the eater." Seeds: words we're planting and waiting on. Bread: words that have endured the test of time and the heat of the furnace and finally made it to our tables. Here's what occurred to me. At any given time, we have both: words from God we're still waiting on and words from God that have recently come to pass. Sometimes we're so focused on the seed that hasn't shown a harvest that we ignore the bread sitting right in front of us. We faint from sowing the seed because we're not eating the bread. Stop a minute. Consider what God has done. Marvel over how He's answered prayer and brought words to pass. Think about a crisis five years ago that doesn't even take up ink in your prayer journal anymore. Reflect on how many things God has taken from seed to bread in your life. Note it. Meditate on it. Don't drive through it. Dine on it. Slap some butter on that warm bread and savor a slow bite of it!

I don't know about you but sometimes I'm so busy pestering the seed that my bread is gets stale.

While you wait on that seed, eat that bread.

I love you,
Beth