As I stare down our children graduating and leaving our home, I look back over the past 18 – 20 years and it puts things in perspective.

A lot of urgent things happened in that time.

There were pressing issues at work that demanded my attention: emergencies, new projects, pending deadlines, bills due.

They felt big and important at the time.

But, they weren’t.

As I look at outcomes 20 years removed from their causes, it is clarifying about what is truly important. Very seldom was it the things that I thought were important.

I got a lot of it wrong.

And as I ponder these outcomes, good and bad, the things that did not seem urgent 20 years ago, were the most important: playing with my kids, kissing my wife good night, and spending Friday nights with other believers in marriage ministry.

Sowing into people are the labors that make for a harvest.

The work that seemed all important tends to only produce beautiful dead things, things with no nutritional value, with no ability to make for a healthy soul.

Wise are the words in Ecclesiastes 12:1,

“Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come,
And the years draw near when you say,
‘I have no pleasure in them'”

Because,

“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
— Proverbs 16:25

I see in retrospect the importance of trusting and obeying God, not only when we cannot see our way but especially when we think we can, and to follow Him despite the path that seems good to us.

The decisions we make now, will be the ones we eat from in the latter days.

Looking back, I do not ever regret a single time that I followed Him and I wish I had followed Him more.

He truly does lead to green places (Psalm 23:1-6).

He truly is Lord of every harvest that I’m enjoying right now.