A Missed Harvest

“Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved.” Jeremiah 8:20 NASB

Jeremiah was filled with sorrow, with grief so deep that it was “beyond healing.” His heart was overwhelmed. He had heard “the cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land.” They did not sense that God was in Zion, asking, “Is her King not within her?”

Tragedies gripped his land and his people were suffering. Many were in exile, after having “provoked” Him “with their graven images, with foreign idols.”

Jeremiah felt shattered. Broken. In mourning. “Dismay has taken hold of me.” Seemingly without hope: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?”

Jeremiah viewed this tragedy from the perspective of the harvest. As an agricultural society, the Israelites depended on harvests to supply their needs. Nothing could seem worse than a bad harvest.

But what they faced was much worse. It was a spiritual disaster. They hoped for an abundant harvest. That every need would be met with abundance. Instead, the harvest was past and “summer is ended.” But help had not come. They were “not saved.”

This is the tragedy of missed opportunities. God had established this eternal principle, that “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest…shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Yet Jeremiah saw a people without the benefit of a harvest. They had sown the wrong kinds of seed. They had been disobedient to God and failed to keep His promises.

How easily we can miss the benefits of a harvest. God calls us to remember that we will reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7). That He promises an abundant harvest if we sow the seed we have been given into good soil (Mark 4:1-20).

Don’t miss out on the harvest God has prepared for you. Sow into His Kingdom! Today!

Prayer: Father, I will sow into Your Kingdom with the time, talent, and treasure You have given me. Thank You for an abundant harvest. I trust in You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.