Reaper

God will reap thoughts, words, and actions

Betty was the youngest daughter of Vince, a farmer from Canada. Altogether the family had seven children. The farmer’s cousin whom children called Aunt Rhenny, lived with them. Aunt Rhenny made a doll for Betty. She collected old stockings and used them to make the head, body, arms and legs, and then filled them with grain and sewed them together. On the doll’s face she drew beautiful eyes, a nose and mouth. Betty loved her doll, she really like to spend time with her. She put her to bed, played with her and sat her down at the table next to herself. Her brothers Jim and George also wanted to play with the doll; sometimes they even fought over her.

One day a misfortune happened. Betty’s doll disappeared. Hot tears ran inconsolably down Betty’s cheeks. She put the doll to sleep in the grass, and then, all of a sudden the doll was gone. The whole family got involved in the diligent search for the doll, but it proved to be in vain. In the evening, the father strictly asked each child, but none of them admitted to anything. They just shrugged their shoulders and looked at either their father, or each other. Though the father directly asked him, George didn’t admit to anything, just as all the other children.

The doll was never found. Aunt Rhenny quickly made another doll for Betty, but the girl was no longer as pleased with it as with the first one.

Autumn came, and winter followed, then spring melted the snowdrifts. The incident with the doll was long forgotten. Nature was waking up from the winter slumber. The boys eagerly began to work at their seedbeds. The seed had been sown, and the little gardeners were waiting impatiently for the sprouts. One morning, everyone noticed suspicious density of greenery on George’s seedbed.

“What is it, George? Did you plant grass there, or what?” asked curious brothers.

“No, some carrots!” claimed George.

His brothers laughed,

“Doesn’t look like carrots. You surely got some strange seeds!”

QUESTION: What do you thing happened at George’s seedbed?

A terrible thought haunted George as he looked at the grass: “Really? No, it can’t be!” A few days later, the father called his son,

“Come here, George.”

To his horror the boy saw that the father stood at his seedbed. The farmer studied the newly sprung plants which unmistakably were wheat sprouts.

“Tell me, George, do these sprouts remind you of anything by the way they look?” George just stood there with his shoulders down and did not say a word. His father continued,

“It looks to me like the shape resembles a small child. Here you can see its arms, and here’s the head, and over here are the legs. Very mysterious, isn’t it?”

Instead of answering, George began to cry bitterly. The father was right! That very evening when the doll disappeared, George secretly hid her to play with her later, and then he pretended that he knew nothing about the disappearance. He even actively participated in the search with everyone else. George thought that his theft was safely covered. But he was wrong.

And now, during this conversation with his father, George admitted his wrongdoing. Bitter tears of remorse ran down his cheeks. The father stood the son in front of him and said,

“George, your sister and I have forgiven you. May this be a lesson to you: God sees everything. Everything we do will be discovered in due course. What people try to hide on this earth, will be revealed in the eternity. But it will be too late to regret your evil deeds. It will be impossible to amend for anything then.[1]

The Harvest Day will come when the Lord will “reap” the people of the earth. Harvest means Judgment. People will be judged for their thoughts, words and actions. In the book of Revelation, at the end of times, we see Christ the Reaper with a sharp sickle in his hand:

“Then I looked, and there was a white cloud! On the cloud sat someone who was like the Son of Man, with a gold victor’s crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. The one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was harvested” (Revelation 14:14-16)

That Day is nigh, but the Good News is that God has given every person an opportunity to repent. Jesus Christ died for the sins of people, and therefore we can ask for the Lord’s forgiveness at any moment.

• When should we confess our sins? As soon as we feel convicted in our hearts. We should not put off our repentance as George did.
• Why should we repent. Because sin separates us from God, but repentance brings us closer to God and each other. God values our repentance when it is produced not by the fear of punishment (as it was with George), but by our love to God.

It is important to watch the “seedbeds” of our lives, so that we do not reap the harvest of eternal perdition on the Judgment Day. Watch yourself so that you do not sow bad seeds of your thoughts, words and actions. And if you did happen to sow them, weed them out immediately with your repentance and confession.

PRAYER: Worship God meditating on His righteous judgment. Thank God that He has not yet used His sickle, and that He gives us the opportunity to admit our mistakes, and to bring the Good News to our families and friends.

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[1] Adapted from a story from Tom, Little Missionary (Tom, der Zettelschneider) by Wolfgang Heiner © 1964