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"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes and showers righteousness on you" (Hosea 10:12).

We see lots of activity in our farming area really ramping up. As we travel we see farm machinery on the rural roads and in the fields. The workers have been working on the fields around our house preparing to plant (sow) corn.

Many home gardeners, using their residential-scale equivalents of plowing, like rototilling and double digging, are preparing their gardens for this year's variety of vegetables and ornamental flowers.

Farmers plow their fields for good reason since plowing boosts plant growth in the short term. By turning over the first few inches of topsoil, more air is introduced to the soil, providing lots of nutrients to plants, which consequently grow very vigorously.

Before you know it, farm stands will soon be open along with flower stands offering various kinds of flower arrangements. A few are already open offering asparagus and other cool weather vegetables and spring bouquets. Oh, how we enjoy the fresh locally gown asparagus during this season!

Farming equipment is vastly different than that described in the Bible times or for that matter much of human history. But our Amish neighbors demonstrate living history in using methods more similar to those used in the Bible. The tools and technology may change but the basic fundamentals of soil preparation, sowing and reaping remains the same, as well as the spiritual lessons we can learn.

The daily verse from Hosea lists three verbs related to crop farming; sowing, reaping and breaking up. It’s interesting to me that he doesn’t list them in the order we would expect (that is, breaking up or plowing, sowing and reaping). As I contemplated and studied this I believe there is a reason:


Let us consider a reason Hosea may have placed these three elements in the order he chose. We need to work the soil in an ongoing way so that we keep our hearts soft and pliable to God’s truth. Even after reaping we need to break up the fallow ground. It’s a cycle that will continue all through life since there are many ungodly forces at work in the changing seasons of our lives that will contribute to spiritual hardness and the continual need we have to break up our unplowed ground. Today let’s welcome the Holy Spirit to do His work in our lives. Let us invite Him to “break up our unplowed ground” and sow righteousness so that we reap His unfailing love as a continual cycle in life.

The latter part of our daily verse “For it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes and showers righteousness on you.” This is just as applicable in 2022 as it was some 2700 years ago when Hosea lived. Jesus reinforces this in His Sermon on the Mount when He directs His listeners: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). It’s always time to seek the Lord, not only because we have opportunity to bless Him, but also for the bountiful favor we receive in doing so, for “He rewards those who earnestly seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Indeed it's always time to seek the Lord, in every season of every year of life!

Be encouraged today, (Hebrews 3:13)

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber