Taking into account the seasons that precede harvest

We speak of the harvest, but rarely take into account the seasons of plowing, planting, watering, and weeding that precede harvest.  In Kingdom work, too, there are seasons which precede and follow harvest times. Every season has its purpose.

When we find ourselves in one of these pre-harvest seasons we need to be fully engaged in that phase of the harvest cycle. In between harvest cycles, there is little we can do other than pray and wait upon the Lord. Since apparently we don't see anything major happening, we assume nothing is taking place. But God is always at work. We may or may not see or understand what He is up to, but He is active behind the scenes.

Prayer must accompany each phase in the harvest, but all the prayer in the world won´t speed up the process. If we are in the "watering" period it does little good to fret and cry out to God because we still haven't seen fruit from our labors. We have a hard time accepting that prayer doesn't seem to be able to accelerate or change the planting cycle!

We want Kingdom matters to operate on our time schedule and according to our expectations. When they don't we anguish, pray harder, and make adjustments to the way we are working thinking the fault is with us. If we can just do things better, correct our errors, then we will see the longed for harvest.

Often what we need is to do less and trust God more. He is at work in the invisible world to bring about all of his plans and purposes. In His time he will bring about His Kingdom.

Does "waiting on the Lord" mean sitting around doing nothing while we wait for the Lord to act?

I personally feel we can do only so much within a given season of the harvest. If it is plowing season, we can plow. If it is planting time, we should be throwing everything we have into getting that seed into the ground. Same goes for watering, weeding, and bringing in the harvest. But beyond doing what we can in the current cycle before us, there isn't a whole lot more we can do. So why stress, fret, and allow ourselves to anguish over things we have no control over?

The following 4-min. "Frog and Toad" story expresses this well.