HARVEST!!

Workers Day

Until one identifies what one plants, harvest should become less a talking point in ones life, there are seasons and each season comes with its uniqueness.

Months back, my backyard was dried, leaves turned brown and crispy. Today, rains have turned the leaves green and the soil soft and porous.

Seeds planted then and decayed, are today looking greenish, lush and flourishing, ready to be harvested.

I dug, planted, watched them grow, nurtured them made sure, the ants, the hash weather, the animals etc didn’t have in them a place of refuge.

Diligently I worked and faithfully waited, expecting the very day I would harvest, relish and use some as charity. Patience! Was the key. It worked!!

Who comes into my backyard and harvests without my permission? Nobody except a thief. Who eats from the harvest from my farm? Nobody except the one I give.

The harvest determines what goes out and who gets what. Bountiful harvest, more people to eat from it, of course depending on ones generous heart.

What did you plant? What are you planting for next year’s harvest? Harvest isn’t meant to be on credit, it is a process that brings the labour of planting, weeding, nurturing to a close. There must of course be something to hold unto as an item of harvest, if really one planted? It is not promisery it is meant to be actual.

Harvest isn’t meant to be on credit, there is no trick, what one plants is what one harvests and the extent of the harvest is primarily dependent on God who gives increase, though not without the planting of Paul and the watering of Apollos.

Many churches are in their season of harvest. Promotions on going and committees set and inaugurated.

Dancing and singing to the altar with basket of “fruits” harvested from last year’s planting is on going.

How did you farm fare? How well did the seed you planted last year do? How many fold did your farm produce and how many baskets of such are you bringing to the altar? How many have you eaten from it and how many will you be willing to give out on charity?

Harvest isn’t just a season, it is much more deeper, more of spiritual activities that either opens or closes the doors of heaven. Cain and Abel had their moments of harvest. To one, heaven opened and to another heaven was closed.

When the environment becomes charged with the rhythm of good choruses, from a good sonorous voice, when the anchor bellows from the altar, speaking truth to souls, when the oratory and power of persuasions of the organisers hit one beyond ones control, what would one do? On the spur of the moment reaction? Dancing, making pledges that wouldn’t be redeemed? or coming exactly the way one is , without deceit, giving from ones harvest without lies,making pledges that would slide into bad debts?

What did you plant? What did you harvest from it and what are you bringing to the altar as your basket of offering?

As harvest activities continue, give what you produced from the previous farming season and plant for next year’s planting.

Don’t dance without your basket of fruits, however small, better small than a big basket with only credit, its redemption very improbable.

Harvest isn’t a showbiz. It is not a class measuring tape. It is not a place to BUGA and flounce around for vain validation. It is a spiritual activity meant to be between one and ones God. Secret!!

Be an Abel in this harvest, the best escape route from the ordeal of Cain. Run away from the greed and kleptomenic tendencies of Ananias and Sapphire , the enticement may be quite overwhelming but the consequences very enduring.

Bring your basket of fruits from your farm. Bring also the basket of your values, morals and character harvested too. Let us “bazaar”on them.

Nothing brings down the sweet smelling fragrance of God’s love for our gifts than a harvest of good fruits in a basket of morals, values and holiness. Anything less could be like a potable water poured on the duck’s back.

Let our harvest not be either one in a big/small baskets of bad pledges or one though filled with the aroma of fresh fruits but harboured inside baskets of ungodliness; our work will be tested with fire, burning every wood and plastic of double life, while making a gold out of all our metal frame and containers of faithfulness, integrity and morals.

With the latter as our score card our harvest this year would have been an excellent outing.

As we harvest and Banzaar, let planting in the life of others be part of us, it could be money ,it could equally be virtues , making next year’s harvest and bazaar a banger by all sides .

I ask, what is your harvest basket? What are inside it?

Jarlath Opara

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