Letter Six, Harvesting Season
A Letter to the Kingdom Building Momma: When to Plant and When to Gather, Sensing Where God is Telling You to Plant, and Gathering Where There is a Ready Harvest
This letter is for the mommas who are gifted in many spaces. It is not intended only for the ones with established businesses and ministries. It’s written to reach the ones who have birthed vision and ideas that you have hidden in notebooks and within your hearts. It’s meant to touch the soul of the one with work on her calendar, a family who needs her, and all while she wears the quiet question heavy on her mind and heart, “Am I trying to do too much?”
I want to declare this over you today…you are not crazy. You are not a hopeless dreamer. You are not a wanderer. You are graced with a vision from God that is bigger than you, and greater than your hands and heart can hold. It requires your faith and needs the touch from your Creator to grow it.
You are multifaceted. God has given you gifts and skills for more than one assignment. The question may not be whether you should tend to them all. It may be, “which part of the garden needs your hands and your attention right now?
Let’s think about a farmer’s field for a moment. Some farmers devote themselves to one crop. Others tend several crops and care for animals too. Both sides of my grandparents had farms. One side had a portion of a tobacco farm; the other had pigs and chickens.
I remember that each farm held many jobs to do, sometimes all simultaneously, sometimes changing with the seasons. Each part of the farm needed attention, yet the demand may have been greater in one space than another…and that could change. Those farming families had to be aware of the need to change their focus, their demand on certain jobs being done in certain seasons, and what it looked like when harvest time had finally come.
I’m literally laughing as I write this, because I was diligently working to meet a deadline when this letter came to me. The twins were napping, and I was eying the clock in preparation for two online students I would be meeting with in less than an hour. I had to pause my quiet, concentrated work to get new resources live in my online stores, because the revelation the I remember that each farm held many jobs to do, sometimes all simultaneously, sometimes changing with the seasons. Each part of the farm needed attention, yet the demand may have been greater in one space than another…and that could change. Those farming families had to be aware of the need to change their focus, their demand on certain jobs being done in certain seasons, and what it looked like when harvest time had finally come. What the Lord was downloading to me came over me like a swift, rushing wind, and I could not wait to write it down.
Maybe you know this feeling, when the Lord is speaking to you about something He wants you to build, release, or simply hear. If we are quiet, patient, and humble, we can hear when the Lord whispers to us to plant just a few seeds in prayer, in blueprints drawn out on paper, or the physical manifestation through us producing it in phases. If we draw near to Him, and ask for His wisdom, His guidance, He will reveal just what we need to do, and when we need to do it. We may not have the finished work at the beginning, but we have the vision of what it will become, we have enough to begin tending it.
Naturally, we feel the push to bring each vision forward to share it outwardly. The part of us that feels we have disappeared within the four walls of our most sacred work, often wants to be validated publicly…recognized…seen. We want it to be fruitful, to bring increase and we want it to be a blessing to us…and to our homes, our families. We have labored over it, prayed over it, worked on it in the wee hours of the night and long stretches of the early morning.
It reminds me of carrying a baby. We can prepare and watch the calendar, but we cannot decide every detail of when that child will arrive. When the time comes, we get in position and do the necessary work to bring them earthside.
Sometimes a harvest is ready in one part of the field, while another part has only just been planted.
Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a season for planting and a season for gathering what has been planted.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;” - Ecclesiastes 3:1-2b (ESV)
The Apostle Paul also writes about planting and watering in ministry, then gives God the credit for the growth.
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” - 1 Corinthians 3: 6-7 (ESV)
I am sitting here with both reminders, that I need discernment for the work in front of me, and that I can trust God with what grows beyond my own hands.
Momma, you do not have to force every idea into full bloom today! And you do not have to keep preparing forever when something is ready to be shared! Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the difference.
Is there a seed He is inviting you to plant quietly today?
Is there fruit you’ve been hesitant to gather?
Is there a field that simply needs watering, or a place where He is inviting you to rest?
Resting for a while did not mean you abandoned the garden. There is room to return, look around, and notice what season each part is in.
I am doing that same thing, right here alongside you. I laid down one piece of work today, long enough to receive this letter. I had to stop and tend another place in the field, and return again to complete what I started here. I am learning that I don’t need to finish every assignment in one sitting. Completing them can and will take time.
Neither do you.
The place that God desires to meet you is at His feet. It is there that His plans are revealed, and strength is poured out for you to carry all that He has given you to hold.
Journal This Prayer With Me
Ask the Father:
🌻Where are you inviting me to plant?
🌻Where are you showing me something ready to gather and share?
🌻Where do I need to trust You with the growth?
🌻In your own words, tell God:
"Thank you for every gift and assignment You have entrusted to me.
Give me wisdom to recognize the season I am in. Help me begin what needs planting, care for what is still growing, and receive the courage to gather and share what is ready. Teach me to rest with you through it all."
Amen.
Scriptures to Meditate On:
🌺Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
🌺1 Corinthians 3:6-7
🌻Remember. You do not have to strive here. You are invited to ABIDE with Jesus here. He already loves you before and beyond anything you could ever do.
With a submitted heart,
Jantina💕
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