In God's time.. harvest

"Our responsibility is to plant, fertilize, and continue to cultivate. God brings the harvest in His time."

What a RELIEF!! When we think in this way, it takes so much pressure off of our relationships with non-Christians and each other. It's easy to want to quantify our "success" as Christians. You know, I've introduced X number of people to the Lord by inviting Y friends to worship services and having so many discussions about my faith with friends and read the bible with so many curious people. But what happens when you are discouraged. You try to be the best person you can be and attempt to do all of these other things -- to bring glory to God. But it all seems to be for not. Why isn't it working? You see it's easy to get down. None of this is quanitifiable. There is nothing quanitfiable about relationship. And as a rather analytical person, I like to quantify things.

But, in the end, I don't know what part of the process any given person is experiencing. God doesn't bog us down with the details. And I think it's because God doesn't want to add that stress to our live's and why should He?

"God has sovereignly placed us where we are. We must realize that our everyday sphere of influence is the place where He will use us the most. And the location of our neighborhood, or the type of job we have matters little, for indeed God will use us where we are."

I don't always have good days sitting here in the office living the glamorous grad student life. Today is good, but the last 2 were truthfully awful... but I am here because He wants me to be. He needs me to be. But, he hasn't given me all the gory details. This is my sphere of influence and I have no idea if I will ever see any of my fruit to the harvest. In the end.. that's okay with me.