Breaking up the Fallow Ground

I keep Bible verses, poetry, the Nicene Creed, and the occasional hymn taped up on the walls and furniture close to my bed.  I like words that mean something.  A few days ago, as I meditated on what would be closely linked to my last post--namely, the futility of my existence--my eyes fell on a particular index card rendition of Hosea 10:12.

Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes to rain righteousness on you.  

At a time when every career seems bent only on my betterment and I question the purpose of such a life, I find this verse a beautiful and challenging reminder.  Sow with a view to righteousness, not survival.  Reap in accordance with kindness, not professional courtesy.  By this time in the verse, I begin to be convicted.  But I read on.

The Google dictionary, which allows me to look up a definition without getting off the couch, defines fallow as, in part, "Plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility..."  Break up your fallow ground.  Loosen the rested soil once again enriched with the minerals essential to strong production.  My sinful heart resounds with fallow.  It is time.

It is time to seek the Lord until, as the judge gave protection to the persistent widow, He comes to rain righteousness upon me.  Jesus asks after his parable, "Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?" (Luke 18:7)  A friend lovingly reminds me that weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning, and Ecclesiastes proclaims the time for weeping, as well as for laughing.  Do not be afraid of the times for mourning, for there is also a time for dancing.  There is in fact an appointed time for everything.  And there is a time for every event under heaven.

But a time to seek the Lord?  That is every time.  That is now.  For it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes to rain righteousness on you.  "That is your purpose now," I say to a freckly face, which frowns at my reproof.  Righteousness is the purpose.

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.   ~James 1:25

As I turn from the mirror, it is far too easy to forget what kind of person I am.