Chasing Fantasies

I read Proverbs 12:11 this morning, “He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgement.”

From a farming point of view it’s obvious that if you don’t plough the fields and sow the seeds, there will be nothing to harvest come autumn. There will be no abundant food. Just because it is wild and windy out in the fields, or wretched and raining, or indeed hot and humid, the farmer cannot afford to sit around and wait for better weather.

I am thinking about the land that I have been given. It is not a physical field of grass and hedges. It is all that makes up my life – the relationships that I enjoy, the talents and skills that I possess, the job with all its challenges. My field is made up of all the varying aspects of my life. All of them, with the right amount of work, should be wielding a harvest of some kind, but I wonder which bits are lying fallow.

If I had actually done all that I had imagined doing over these last few weeks I would have:-

• Dealt with the weeds in the garden
• Called the plumber to repair the leak in the loft
• Driven the car to the garage to have the dents and scratches sorted
• Contacted the heating engineer to replace to the boiler and the gas heater

Perhaps it is when I look at my walk with Jesus that I am most shocked about how little I work the “land” – the prayers that don’t get answered because I don’t pray them, the illnesses that I endure because of the promise of healing that I don’t claim, the mediocre life I live because of the promises in God’s word that I don’t hunt out and hang on to, the challenging conversations I don’t have because I don’t visit friends, the opportunities to witness that I don’t take advantage of because I lack confidence… the list is a long one!

If only I lived the life I imagined to live, where my fantasies were transformed into realities, by some hard work, how different I would be, and perhaps how different the people around me would be too!

It is time to stop chasing fantasies and start doing some hard work!