I haven’t checked in with you all for a while on the annual read through of the Bible. 

I know there are many takes on reading through the entire Bible in a year, and I totally understand that it can become rote reading just to get your passages in. I understand the value of doing more in depth reading and study of smaller portions, but I also believe there is great value to reading the entirety of Scripture and I can’t think of a simpler and easier way to do it and stick with it than just reading a small portion every day of an entire year. 

A lot of years. 

And yes, read more than that. But at least do that and I will give you a practical reason. If the Bible is the food of our spirit, think about your food for your body. 

You eat every day to keep alive.

98% of your meals are ordinary and basically the same.

Maybe you are a cereal and toast for breakfast guy. Sure a couple times a year you go out for the Grand Slam special but what sustains you every day is a nondescript bowl of grains and a slice of bread with butter and maybe some jam. 

You couldn’t necessarily tell us which cereal you ate last week on Thursday, but you are alive today because you continued to fuel your body with what sustains it. 

And most days I guarantee you will find some little treasure you never discovered before in reading the text of Scripture.

And so I am going to share a nugget gleaned from my time in the Word this morning…just to whet your appetite to either start reading daily or continue on in it as the year unfolds into it’s second half as of midnight.

I happen to be in Isaiah and I am pretty much on track with an average of 5 pages a day since I got a little behind last week. 

In a portion with the subheading God’s Wonderful Advice, I found this little tidbit that speaks to the Midwestern heart that beats in me. 

Listen and hear My voice, pay attention and hear what I say.

Isaiah 28:1

Right off the bat, this jumped out at me because if ever on earth we needed God’s wisdom, it is right now. 

So with attentive ears, I read on to find a series of questions fit for a farmer. 

Does the plowman plow every day to plant seed?

Does he continuously break up and cultivate the soil?

Isaiah 28: 24

Well, of course not. 

Around here we have recently watched the fields get turned over and planted. Then they were rained out in portions and replanted. But now we do not see farmers out with planters in their fields. 

The crops we pass on the daily are pretty much growing right before our eyes and we see farmers mowing the areas around the fields, or out checking progress on foot, but it would be downright foolish to take a planter out in the middle of the rows of corn and soy beans right now. 

And farmers are not foolish. 

Verse 25 goes on to detail how agriculture worked in the time of Isaiah’s writing and while it sounds very different than our modern techniques, I think we can make the connection.

When he has leveled its surface, does he not then scatter black cumin and sow cumin? He plants wheat in rows and barley in plots, with spelt as their border. 

Isaiah 28: 25

Like the fields here in the Midwest, the farmer knew how each crop grew best and how to place them on the land in a way to bring about abundant harvest. 

But Isaiah reminds us of why the wise farmer knows this:

His God teaches him order; he instructs him. 

Isaiah 28: 26

The rest of the passage talks about the various ways things are harvested and processed – each one unique depending on the variety of plant.

It would be unwise to harvest the corn in the same manner as the soy bean. Even a city slicker can figure that out.

God has given knowledge through technology and the development of machinery suited to all the steps from planting to extracting the necessary elements for use in industry. 

Isaiah ends with the reason all of this matters to us who are not farmers or in ag business.

This also come from the LORD of Armies, He gives wondrous advice; He gives great wisdom. 

Isaiah 28:29

So Isaiah is pointing to something we can all see with our eyes and understand by pointing to the fields that provide the food we eat to nourish our bodies.

There is an order to sowing, tending and harvesting. There is an order to how food is processed for consumption. 

And this order comes not from the Department of Agriculture or the halls of the Ag Business unit of the local university. 

This order comes from God who gives great wisdom and wondrous advice and counsel to all of us in every single area of our lives. 

In our business world and our homes, in our relationships and our finances, in government and church life…every single area of our lives has the potential to be guided by godly wisdom and instruction if we would just seek God as our teacher and leader and counselor. 

If you are blessed to live near a field planted with rows of something today, may I suggest you pause and observe the neat rows and the spacing of each plant and prayerfully ask God to order your thoughts according to His wisdom today? 

It will do the world a world of good if you would seek His counsel in all your sowing, tending and reaping…trust Him <3