We love harvests, harvests are visible, and they give us something to celebrate. You can point to the fruit and say, Look what God has done. But every harvest has a history. Before there was fruit, there was seed. Before there was something impressive to see, somebody did something that probably didn’t look impressive at all. They planted.

Psalm 126 captures both sides beautifully. The people are celebrating what God has done: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.” They’re standing in a harvest that once seemed impossible. But the Psalm doesn’t end with celebration. It goes right back to sowing. “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” In their world, seed wasn’t a hobby, it was survival. What you held in your hand could become food today or harvest tomorrow. Planting meant releasing something valuable with no guarantee of what would happen next. That’s faith.

We’re enjoying things today because somebody planted before us. Somebody prayed. Somebody gave. Somebody taught a child. Somebody invited a friend. Somebody encouraged a hurting person. Somebody believed God when there wasn’t much evidence that anything was happening.

Now it’s our turn. Jesus said the Kingdom is like a mustard seed. It starts small, but small doesn’t mean insignificant. A conversation, prayer, or invitation. An hour spent serving. A lesson taught to a child. An act of generosity. None of those things looks like a harvest, they look like seeds.

There are people who will someday experience the fruit of something you’re planting right now. You may not know their names. You may never see everything your seed becomes. Plant anyway. We’ve spent this week talking about preparing the ground. But we don’t prepare ground just to have nice dirt.

We prepare it because there’s a harvest worth planting for.