“You can never know the significance of your life while you’re in the middle of it,” she said matter of factly. I agreed with her. There’s never a way to tell how just being who you are changes the dynamics of any situation. Sometimes, you get to see it. Other times and more often, there are no visible ripples across the lake when you’re just being yourself.
Action causes reaction every time! There really are ripples across the pond. Every action you take, every word of encouragement, every act of kindness changes something hopefully for the good.
image by Arun, Creative Commons 2.5
A colleague asked this question a couple of months ago, “What harvest would you like to see five years from now?” A good question. A great way of asking about what kind of fruit, what kind of legacy, what kind of wake do you want following behind you. His follow up question got my attention. “What seeds are you sowing now to produce that harvest?”
There is a lag time between sowing and harvest. Whether we discuss personal character or organizational results, the same is true. The time when the seed germinates may take a while to see even some little signs of life. Because of the lag time, we can lose awareness of the effect of our actions, of our influence. Yet, bottom line, each action is in itself a seed- building a habit, showing love, withdrawing. Each will have fruit. The question is as my colleague asked, “What kind of fruit, what kind of harvest do you want in the future?”
tonight I was at a birthday party for a friend. She is a fun, spontaneous person- a walking party herself! She has never met a stranger! She loves people and continually includes new people in her life. This has been true for as long as I’ve known her – more than twenty five years.
In the room were twenty five to thirty women from all different seasons of her life. Some were new friends, from the past year. Some were old friends from college and early ministry years. Still others had shared similar roles and maintained connection from those days. Others had served on teams overseas together and have the unique bond of adapting to a new place together. Another group was from her current team. The room was a rich tapestry of her life.
She has sown seeds of friendship everywhere she has gone- through hospitality, through reaching out to others, through making things fun and involving others. She has opened her home to guests, created special celebrations for friends, and been a willing listener when people have needed one. We laughed as one friend said, “she finds the fun places and things to do and brings others (who have lived there longer) into her adventures.”
A small slice of her harvest was there tonight – this collection of women who truly appreciate the unique and loving person that she is.
And that brings me back to my colleague’s question: what seeds are you sowing now for the harvest that you’d like to see in the future? What you do now will make a difference tomorrow. You may not see the return immediately, but there will be a return. it’s just a matter of what kind and how much, not if. We’re sowing seeds every day. Let them be for good and not for evil.
Linking up with Faith Filled Fridays.
AB Reflections 