Back in my college days, I got one of those Inductive Study Bibles and I studied the Bible like it was a text book. I would have out all my various colored highlighters and the sheet of symbols with which to mark everything and I would spend hours at the local Panera bread, sipping on coffee and diagraming the texts. And although that’s not often the way I approach the Word these days, that method of study taught me a lot about how to recognize patterns and emphasized phrases.
One of the lessons I remember learning was that when anything was repeated three times in a passage to pay particular attention. I have long since forgotten the symbol to mark those triplets with, though in my mind not a one slips by without my recognition.
Three times in the last 24 hours I have had the same phrase said to me.
My sister, Beth, sent me a text:
“Hey sweet sis π Praying for you this morning. Reminded of the beautiful promise that she who goes out to the field sowing in tears reaps songs of joy at harvest.”
Then a long distance friend I haven’t spoken to in awhile sent me a text saying she was praying for Cohen and I and cited the same verse.
Then I checked the blog today to find that Amy had left a comment repeating it once more “those who sow in tears will reap in joy.”
Somewhere in my mind a highlighter was readying itself to do the work it was created for… *grin*
I opened up Bible Gateway and searched “sow + tears” and was immediately directed to Psalm 126:
“When the Lord brought back the captives [who returned] to Zion, we were like those who dream [it seemed surreal]. Then were our mouths filled with laughter, and our tongues with singing. Then they said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us! We are glad! Turn to freedom our captivity and restore our fortunes, O Lord, as the streams in the South (the Negeb) [are restored by the torrents]. They who sow in tears shall reap in joy and singing. He who goes forth bearing seed and weeping shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
At the opening of this psalm, I imagined the sojourning masses, tired and worn, reaching Zion with mouths wide open, eyes wide, pinching themselves. Could this be real? Could it really be this good? After being in captivity, it had been a long journey to the homeland; a journey fraught with trouble and at times doubt. But here they are! And as the reality sinks it, laughter and singing break out in the crowd like waves bursting forth in the sea and then lapping up on banks of the shore. The laughter punctuates the singing…The Lord has done great things for us! We are glad!
The song records the truth many of us have come to experientially know. The Lord has a way of transforming captivity into freedom; a way of breaking seemingly impossible chains. Doesn’t he? The Lord restores not with a trickling-drip-drip-drip-maybe-you’re-filled-up-maybe-you’re-not, but with torrents… with heavy rain, with a deluge, an downpour, a cloudburst, a flood, an overflow…
Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.
In my mind’s eye I see GoGo Moyo, that sweet nearly blind grandmother I met in Zimbabwe. Her eyes were blued from the cataracts that were taking them over and on the day we spent with her she wore and blue and white dress and matching hat. Her skin was dark and weathered, making her look twice her age at first glance. But her smile- that smile!– cut her years in half. She walked us through the field of drying produce next her modest one room home. What should’ve been vibrant green was the color of the stalks left over after harvest. And those failing stalks swayed with the breeze as she walked, hands clasped behind her back, face becoming like a stone. She had buried all of her children in that field. The moment was sobering. She had sown a lifetime of tears. And yet when I think about that smile and the life in her eyes, I can only imagine the joy she will harvest when she ends her journey and falls to her knees in front of the One she loves as if it were a dream. I can hear infectious laugh of hers bursting into the heavens, followed by the song in her heart. He has done great things for me! I am glad!
He goes forth bearing seed and weeping shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
The Bible says that God gives seed to the sower. It does not say that every season of sowing will be in the happy times, does it? In fact in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon records this, “He who observes the wind [and waits for the conditions to be favorable] will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.” (11:4)
If we get looking around at our own circumstances, we might talk ourselves into not sowing the seed that God has given us. We might convince ourselves that the time to plant is when everything is worked out; that the time to be obedient is when we’re not afraid; that the time to die to ourselves is when we’re not already mourning. Certainly, God understands when we hold onto the seed He’s provided for reasons of personal sorrow, right?
And Jesus said “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest.” (John 12:24)
And He was doing more than teaching a farming lesson because He goes right on to talk about losing your life for His sake…
The psalmist rightly says when we sow those precious seeds in the time of weeping, surely we will gather what has grown with rejoicing… that surely the very product of our sorrow will be what sustains us.
I thank God for the seed He graciously provided me and for the Word He spoke to give me the confidence to plant even when the winds whipped wildly around me and the storm clouds brewed overhead. I can sing along with those who have arrived ahead of me… the Lord has done great things for me! I am glad!
Though the dying was by no means pleasant, seedlings have taken root, shoots are springing from the ground, and I look confidently toward the days of the joyful harvest that lies ahead!
What a precious passage of scripture. Love reading your words again. Think of you often and lift you up when I do. Do you know you have a beautiful spirit? π
Amen. And, my face can’t help but smile when reader shows a post from you!
I felt encouraged by your last post. The phrase just came to me after reading the entry. I kind of forgot about it…But God is really teaching me what it means you know? It really makes you want to hold on to God and His Word and promises.
God Bless (L)