“The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”
– Proverbs 20:4 ESV
This year, my wife and I are going to start a vegetable garden. We plan to grow tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and other vegetables. We’re looking forward to eating our own crops months from now – I can’t wait to make homemade salsa with homegrown vegetables!
However, in order to successfully do this, there is a reality we have to acknowledge from the get-go: If we want to grow our own crops, we have to start preparing and working towards this end goal now. If we delay, we will get to harvest season and miss out.
Gardening teaches you how to patiently work towards a future reward. You don’t get an instant ‘happy meal with fries’ when you plant your seeds. You work hard and sow seeds, effort, time, and energy, and you reap the benefits weeks and months down the road.
No matter what you’re working on and creating, it’s going to take time to grow.
Meaningful projects take time to grow – whether you’re farming, writing a book, starting a business, planting a church, pursuing marriage and a healthy relationship with your spouse, starting a camp for kids, or becoming a professional photographer. These things don’t happen overnight, they require sowing lots of time and effort (and sometimes, money).
Let’s say you are an aspiring author writing your first book. A 30,000 overview of this principle would look something like this:
The harvest – the time when you get to reap what you sowed – is going to come. The only question is, what will you reap when the harvest comes? Will you reap the rewards of your first published book, your first two customers, your first album, and/or the satisfaction of progress? Or will you reap disappointment and regret, due to procrastinating and not starting?
As author and entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said, “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”
So, what projects are you working on now, that won’t be harvested for months – or maybe even, years – down the road? Are you patiently and slowly building it each day?
If you procrastinate and put it off until later, you will eventually get to ‘later’ and only be disappointed that you didn’t start sooner. As it’s written in Proverbs 20:4, “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”
It’s time to start plowing.
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