This spring, I finally broke ground on my first garden here in Mississippi, four years after moving from Kentucky. The biggest question with a garden is: Do I want one or not? And once it’s settled that you do, then the second biggest question is: What do I want to harvest? My daughter and I talked that over fairly intensely as we looked over the seeds and seedlings at the local co-op. So many cool fruits and vegetables to choose from.

Although the harvest was still weeks away, we had to make a decision right then and there in the co-op what we wanted to harvest because that’s actually determined by the seed. You don’t plant beans and expect tomatoes. You don’t plant peppers and expect watermelons. What you sow, you will also reap.

That is a rock-solid gardening law, but it’s also a law that governs our lives. Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 6:7–8, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Beloved, that’s not a threat. It’s a spiritual law as real as the soil beneath my Xtratufs.

Just a few verses back in chapter 5, Paul details the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. That harvest is determined by the spiritual seeds we plant in our lives today. Every thought entertained, every attitude exhibited, every act completed, every habit repeated is a seed being planted into the ground of our lives.

Every day, we are sowing seeds, but are we sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit? The flesh promises quick satisfaction but eventually produces corruption. The Spirit requires sacrifice and discipline yet yields eternal life and lasting fruit.

We should never be surprised by the harvest we receive if we know the seeds we are planting.

So, beloved, today, sow carefully because what you sow today, you shall certainly reap tomorrow.

Change begins in you!