“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (James 5:7–8, ESV)
Waiting Like a Farmer
Farmers know how to wait because they are forced to wait. There’s no shortcut to the tilling, planting, fertilizing, watering, and inevitable waiting for the plant to grow. It’s a slow and tedious process.
It’s also a process that, mostly, is completely out of their control. Sure, they can work diligently to prepare and plant and fertilize to the best of their ability, but they have no control over the sun and the temperatures. Just ask farmers in the Midwest this year about how much control they have over their crops.
They have to do their best and wait for the crop to grow and ripen on its own. If they grow impatient and harvest the crop too early, they don’t get a good yield, costs go up, and the crop could spoil.
Waiting For The Precious Fruit
C. S. Lewis talks about how our impatience causes us to settle for smaller joys. Not only smaller joys, but our impatience causes us to hate things that would have been good.
In the Magicians Nephew, there’s a scene where the White Witch has snuck into a garden and eaten fruit in the wrong way, at the wrong time. When asked about what will happen to her, Aslan says, “That’s what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loath it ever after” (p. 174).
Impatient Disappointment
When our impatience causes us to pluck a fruit before it’s ripe, we eat it and then become angry because it wasn’t as good as it looked. Then we go around telling everyone else that the fruit is deceptive—it looks better on the outside than it tastes on the inside. We end up loathing the fruit because we ate of it before it was ready. If we would have waited patiently for the fruit to be ready, we would have realized how delicious—and worth the wait—it is.
Waiting Like a Farmer in Everyday Life
Waiting like a farmer in everyday life means putting in the work you can do and trusting God with the rest. Waiting like a farmer in everyday life does NOT mean idly sitting around doing nothing—“letting go, and letting God.” It means working. It means tilling the ground, planting the seeds, fertilizing, and watering. But it also means waiting for that work to produce fruit.
Waiting like a farmer means that we will not grow impatient, trying to shortcut the process, and lose our crop. It means trusting that God is faithful in his promises. Then waiting to see those promises fulfilled.
Waiting like a farmer means that we will “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV). Our work is not in vain because it is producing fruit. We just need to wait for the fruit…like a farmer.