Cause and Effect

The following was sent to me via email by a brother; it’s from John Hagee Ministries; it’s called “Small Beginnings”:

We love to celebrate big things! We bestow huge awards on people who perform better than everyone else. Behind every person who reaps the recognition, though, someone else has sown the little things.

In 1970, Dr. Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his extensive work in agriculture. Scientists estimate that his discoveries saved over two billion people who would have starved to death.

Along with Borlaug, we must recognize Henry Wallace, one-time Vice-President of the United States. As the former Secretary of Agriculture, he believed that if the world was going to be at peace, it needed food. He hired young Borlaug to study ways to feed the world.

George Washington Carver must receive credit, too. Before he became the genius of his generation, he volunteered to take his professor’s son on nature hikes.  There, he taught young Henry Wallace how all plants were created by God and could be used for great reasons.

Before that, Moses and Susan Carver rescued George from a band of bushwhackers who murdered his mother and kidnapped him. To honor his mother’s memory, they adopted George as their own.

Do not despise this day of small beginnings. Only God knows what eternal fruit will grow from the seeds you plant today!

In John chapter 4 we have this account:

Jesus was weary.  He stopped by Jacob’s well near Sychar in Samaria and was resting when a Samaritan woman came to draw some water.   Amazing things happened.

A Jewish man spoke to a Samaritan woman!  That was unheard of in those days!  She asked Him why.  He said if you knew the Gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would ask HIM and He would give you a drink of living water and you would never thirst again.

The disciples had gone to buy food, and upon returning they were astonished that the Messiah was talking to a Samaritan woman.  But they didn’t ask Him why.   While the ties of tradition and custom were strong, they surely had learned by now the Master was not about those things, and they kept silent.

The woman was convinced by now that Jesus was no ordinary man, and as she would testify to her community, “He told me all the things I ever did”, and many came to the well to see Him.  But someone had already told her that “the Messiah is coming” and “He will tell us all things.”

Jesus said “I Who speak to you am He.”

We may never know who first told the Samaritan woman about Christ.  But by doing so they prepared her heart to hear from God, and when she did, she responded immediately:  “Give me this living water that I may never thirst again.”

Her immediate understanding may have been flawed; but He told her that “…You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.   But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.   God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

He helped her understand that salvation (Christ) came out of the Jewish nation but is provided for all, Jews and gentiles alike.

And, perhaps, there is another lesson the disciples and Samaritans learned that day:  Salvation is for men and women.  In a culture dominated by men (she went into the city and told the men) they learned there is no custom, no tradition, no cultural practice above the Truth of the Gospel, i.e. “for God so loved the world…“

Jesus said to the disciples “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! ³⁶ And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” v.39

One person sharing with another person, one on one, helping them, taking the time to share what they know, what they have experienced, what they have learned.

One sows and another reaps.