Leah Richardson

As I was driving back to New Orleans last weekend from South Georgia, where I grew up, I had to stop and take a picture of something I don’t see here in the city- cotton fields ripe for harvest.  Cotton balls dotted what seemed like an endless landscape of fluffy white fields.  It was so beautiful.  Driving alone in my jeep on this lonely road, I pondered the wonderful cycle God created of seed time and harvest.  God’s perfect plan in perfect timing for perfect provision…seed time and harvest.

I was in Camilla for a book signing and while there, I enjoyed visiting my family and so many old friends…friends and family that planted good seed into my life.  Seeds of love and encouragement, seeds of hope.  Seed that took root and God made grow.  The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians that He planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.  Only God can give life to the seed- abundant life, for He is the Lord of the Harvest.

I found myself praying, asking Him to bless all those who diligently planted so many years ago.  To give them their “due season“.   Experience teaches us that we reap what we sow, but did you know that we all have a “due season” in our lives?  In another letter, this time to the Galatians, Paul writes, “And let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we don’t give up.”   The phrase “proper time” can also be translated “due season“.  And that phrase “due season” in Greek is “idios”, where we get our English word idiosyncrasy.  We each have our little idiosyncrasies…little mannerisms and personality traits that are particular to us. This Scripture is saying that each of us have a God-ordained, very personal and divinely appointed season of reaping an abundant harvest in our lives if we just won’t give up!  Wow, that is good news! But then, God’s Word is full of Good News.

I encourage you today to think about the people that have taken the time and energy to sow good seed into your life. Thank God for them and ask Him to show you whose life you can sow into.  Our lives can look like those endless cotton fields…our due season ripe for harvest- if we don’t give up!  Pray to the Lord of the Harvest.

Jesus said, “Do  you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’?  I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest.”

Sowing my seed…

leah

Jim and I traveled to North Georgia last weekend where I shared a tent with my precious and talented “artist” mom at the Octoberfest in Big Canoe, which is about an hour north of Atlanta.   Although a bit overcast, Jim and I welcomed slightly cooler temperatures than the Big Easy and really enjoyed spending time with the family. Bird houses and “Bear crossing” signs were the HOT TICKET items, but as people browsed our tent, I was able to share the meaning of my new book, Interior Wisdom: Designing your Home and Heart for the Lord.  And, once again, I was blessed by the lovingkindness of strangers.  We might have begun our conversation as mere strangers…but before they walked away, we knew deep within that there was a common and powerful thread that wove us together.

This thread is a beauty that reaches past natural Interior Wisdom for our home, to a beauty and Interior Wisdom that only comes from the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Only this thread can instantly weave the interiors of perfect strangers together with love.   This Interior Wisdom comes from the Grand Designer.  Even among bratwurst, ruben sandwiches and the Oompah band, He was there.  For those of us who believe, what a wonderful promise we have in knowing that we will never be alone.  Our faith will forever weave brothers and sisters together among us, if we will just have spiritual eyes to see.

I laugh thinking about how the Bible tells us not to despise humble beginnings.  This little Octoberfest was a humble beginning for Interior Wisdom, and I am humbled to know that even in these seemingly smallest of times, we can do what we do for Jesus and make a difference.

All of life counts, and I so hope I will never stop appreciating small beginnings with a humble and grateful heart.  The mustard seed, when watered with faith, produces the largest tree in the garden.  In the hands of sweet Jesus, even the little, mundane and ordinary can bloom and find its place.  Is there a tiny “Octoberfest” mustard seed in your hands?…

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…Ephesians 3:17

Enjoy all your October-festivities!

leah