Cultivating Your Days: Lessons From the Proverbs 31 Woman

I don’t know if you ascribe to the notion of a ‘word of the year’, but it’s been something that I’ve done now for almost a decade. This year’s word is gather.

It can easily conjure up images of dining room wall hangings and holiday memes on social media. But for me, contemplating what it means to gather has been a journey into definitions—words like assemble, cultivate, and gain understanding.

But none of the definitions have been as impactful as this one: harvest.

Our culture loves to celebrate the harvest. We measure it, applaud it, reward it, endorse it. Shelves are filled with books about how to achieve more in less time so we can then achieve even more, and volumes have been written about finding our purpose and calling—all with a focus on how much we can produce.

The “output equals achievement” model even finds its way into our churches. We laud the largest and fastest-growing. We set attendance goals. We cheer the number of views on our sermon streams.

Living in a world that equates purpose with production can leave us feeling as though we’ll never produce enough. A society that amplifies the voices of those with the largest platforms and most followers can cast a long shadow on the way we view our own worth. 

We feel whiplashed by confidence and comparison and condemnation. And even if we accomplish all that our calendars have set forth for us to do in a day, we can still go to bed at night wondering if the work of our hands mattered at all.

PREPARING FOR THE HARVEST

Certainly, harvest time is a lovely thing. As Ecclesiastes 3:2 teaches us, there is “a time to plant and a time to harvest” (NLT).

The harvest comes in time. Only in time. It is only a moment in season upon season of glorious moments as the fruit bears its divine purpose.The harvest begins when we consider the field in which we stand, and let our feet sink deep into its soil.

“When you wish to be somewhere God hasn’t put you, you miss where He has you. Head down. Do what’s right in front of you. Love the people God’s given you. Don’t compare. 

Don’t worry it isn’t enough. Trust where He has you right now. Today. If He needs you somewhere else, doing something else—tell Him you are willing and trust Him to let you know.” Jennie Allen

I’ve never met a gardener who doesn’t have grit under her nails, who doesn’t let her knees press into the dirt, who doesn’t watch the skies and peek under leaves and lean in to listen to the quiet voices of color and texture and flavor and fragrance.

I’ve never met a farmer who doesn’t know the condition of every field she is tending or go to battle to protect the life those fields carry or do the work necessary to let the fields bloom and grow. They see their worth and value not in the size of the harvest, but in the way they shepherd the fields as they till and plant and tend and prune; protect and water and wait and rest.

Neither the gardener nor the farmer look at the soil under their feet and declare it worthless because it isn’t filled with blooms. No, instead, they consider the ground, and then cultivate it. They learn about its design and composition. They nurture that soil so that it may be life-giving. They let the soil tell them what fruit might be born from its depths. They labor with the soil. And they step away from the labor and give that soil time to do its good work.

They don’t force a harvest. They know that the bounty will come in its time, when it is beneficial for use. Both the gardener and the farmer know the true reward of the harvest is the life-giving story that will be born from the fruit that would not exist without the abiding and tending.