Come before Winter

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.

Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.

At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Do your best to get here before winter.

2 Timothy 4:6-21

We got the first good snow of the season this past week (Thursday), reminding us that winter is ushering itself in. And as neighbors moved plants into their homes (to keep them alive), and others moved kids out of the house to play in the snow (probably for the same reason), I began to reflect.

Our preacher gives an annual sermon using this passage. The sermon always comes at the end of the harvest season. We "civilized" folk living in the metropolises scattering the plains of West Texas typically think of the gins (not the drinking type), strippers (not the dancing type), and module builders (not the computer programming type) at harvest, and a final push and flurry of work after patient and prolonged tending of the crops of the fields. Then after the harvest, with the cotton in trailers at the gin yard or bundled into modules at the turnrows, there is an eerie silence across the barren fields where once was verdant life. Golden harvest sunsets pass to the winter's cold flannel gray skies. At the onset of winter, nothing more can a farmer do to get more from his harvest. It's just too late.

Is this not the way it is with our life? Paul knew it -- "winter" was approaching. He understood how short life was because he knew his plight in Rome would end with his death. And as the seasons changed it made him reflect on his "harvest."

So too may we.

I understand something about the "harvest" in our own lives. We each "reap" what we "sow." Without planting and tending no harvest will come. We cannot expect to make a difference in the lives of those around us without acting in love and concern, tending our relationships with time and effort. How sad it would be to stand at our own "winter" seeing the harvest days had passed, and wish that our own "fields had produced more or better crops". So we work to make the most of our time.

Yet, with a calendar full of obligations to my church family and school, monthly deacons meetings full of requests for aid, and a constant schedule of helping young people learn science, I forget the real reasons I do those things to help others, make others lives better, or help them through hard things in their lives. It seems they just become another item to put on the calendar and fulfill. In efforts to treat others with care, we de-humanize them into a scheduled, prioritized list of activities. Then we wonder why we feel like we never do enough for others? Where is the harvest? Have I forgotten the real reason I am doing all this anyway?

The harvest always means gathering. It isn't the process of caring and tending. It's the process of seeing the reward of labor. No one looks for the harvest in the heat of July. They know its coming, but with the tender plants in the ground struggling to grow big and tall under an oppressive landscape, the farmer works busily tending with hope. Will every young shoot grow and produce? No, but if the farmer is patient and purposed, a harvest will come.

We the "instant gratification generation," with our internet speed, drive-thru shopping, and memories made indelible in one hour or less, have forgotten that you don't plant and harvest at the same time. You tend to those around you, whether that be the young tender shoot of our children, those oppressed by the "heat" of this cruel world, or the widowed and elderly, and then expect to see the fruit of your work by the first sunset. We get discouraged and forget that the harvest will come, if we are patient and purposed. Paul, patient and purposed, said it best when he stated above "I have kept the Faith." Even with the disappointments that he faced, and those who turned from him or harmed him, he knew that he had touched the lives of others. There were those he called friends. There were those like Mark, who he had disagreed with, but wanted to make amends. There were so many whom he would never know he so affected deeply by his life.

May we all be able to come to a day in our lives where we might look at the field, as the cold northern wind wisps mare tails across the azure sky. And as we look into the last strains of sunset, realize we had a harvest. We made a difference in the hearts of those around us.