The duality of resources

Lionel Robbins defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. The ends in that definition refer to unlimited wants and needs; the scarce means are the limited resources at our disposal; while the alternative uses are other options we could readily apply these scarce resources to.

Man's needs as we have been rightly taught by Adam Smith, a Scottish economist, are unending and insatiable, and since we know that the resources with which to meet these needs are in short supply, we need to apply our hearts to wisdom and walk circumspectly to the end that we make the most out of the least that we have.

We have seen from scriptures how dynamic God can be, in His use of resources. And we, His creation, have tried in our way to replicate the same vastness in our application of resources. Natural elements like fire, water, wind, earth, space, light, etc. have been employed differently on several occasions by God to meet specific needs.

So in Isaiah 55:10, God introduces an equation with three variables. A source, having two potential outflows. 

[10]For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

Let's examine the first but silent variable in that equation. 

The Rain.

The rain signifies a shower of blessing being released upon the earth and the reason is to support Agriculture. "No shrub or plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground" Genesis 2:5 AMP. 

For as long as there was no man to cultivate the ground, there was no rain. The rain did not fall because there was a man available. No. The rain fell because a man to cultivate the ground was available. The word cultivate is primarily agricultural terminology. 

Agriculture, as at the time, was the mainstay of the economy, and as such, the primary means of livelihood.  This can be implied to mean that your agricultural equivalent today, is your source of livelihood. While for some, your job fits this description, for others, it could be your business, your skills, your ideas, innovations, etc. Just let the Spirit of God breathe upon your mind as you think wide.

From that scripture, we see that the inflow of your income, from that source of livelihood, is a stream designed to flow into two channels of expression. Your income is supposed to give;

1. Seed to the sower, and

2. Bread to the eater

God provided rain to meet one of the core needs of man, food. But in that food provided, lies two mysteries we need to understudy. The food is both seeds to the sower and bread to the eater. The Bible never said bread to the eater and seed to the sower. This arrangement was intentional and is also instructive.

While "Seed to the sower" caters to your future, "Bread to the eater" meets your present needs. This order was designed by the intelligence of the Father because, man, if left to himself, is short-sighted, and is more concerned about the now than 

tomorrow. We don't mind exhausting our reserves to satisfy present desires, after all, the Bible said "take no thought for tomorrow". That the Bible said so, is not a guarantee for laziness. 

Many of us started our financial journey by eating bread before sowing seed and that error explains why the harvest at the end of the season is sparing. God intended that we sow the seed and then, eat the bread afterward. The essence of the seed is to secure the next harvest and ensure that there will be food to eat in the next season, while the bread is to keep you alive during the period between the seed planting and the harvesting. 

God never instructed you to sow all as seeds or eat all as bread, although there are situations where He could give personalized instructions in line with His custom dealings upon your life. However, in that your income, harvest, profit, etc; let wisdom profit your understanding and instruct you unto discretion; set aside the seed you will sow before you eat the bread. 

The question then becomes, how do you sow this seed, to ensure that there is not just harvest, but sufficient harvest in the coming season to meet the dual functions of preserving seed for sowing and providing bread for eating?

I answered that question extensively in my post on "Behind closed doors". So, if you need answers, check that blog.

My area of concern in this piece is to share with us something very profound and powerful. I have been opportune to learn this through the privilege of mentorship, counseling, my personal experience, and God's word and I strongly believe, it will bless your life in no small measure.

Scriptures make it clear when it says "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. Galatians 6:7 AMP.

We see this "precept" in Genesis 8:22 "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.” 

Since we know that as long as there is a seed sown, there is already harvest in view, ceteris paribus, then wisdom is profitable to direct us into finding out the kinds of seeds we can sow, like this; to a large extent; determines the kind of harvest to expect. Remember, once that seed is sown, harvest is a matter of time. As for that harvest, you must reap it.

Many times we get carried away by the word seed that we tend to view it through the lens of grains. It is in this wise, that I wish to categorize seeds into five.

1. Thoughts.

We have heard of the maxim that says "you are a product of your thoughts".  As true as that statement is, many people have not given it the focused attention it deserves. 

Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.  Is it not funny, that many people, rather than create the world they want, have become victims of other people's creation.  In my post on "...even as thy soul prospereth" I did mention that Everything we see and enjoy in our world today is a product of somebody's idea that was birthed. 

Oh, how true that statement is. 

That means we are at the mercy of other people's creativity if we refuse to be creative ourselves. 

Creativity relates to or involves the use of imagination or original ideas to create something. By imagination, we are talking about the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. The ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful. 

All these are outcomes of our thinking. When we engage our minds positively, constructively, and productively, we imagine, and from those imaginations are birthed creative ideas that influence the paradigm from which we act, react, speak, reason, understand, analyze, interact and decide. 

Having established this, how then can we employ our thoughts, to produce seed and bread. Because, the quality of our thoughts, as we know, determines the quality of our lives.

Thoughts, in and of themselves, have no power, it is only when we actively invest our attention into them that they begin to appear real. And when we engage with specific thoughts, we begin to unravel the dimensions in those thoughts, which we can act upon, to maximize the life and power embedded therein. 

The potential for growth which lies within the seed; which in this context is our thought; needs the right soil to execute all the five stages I discussed in my blog "behind closed doors". 

Just as every seed trying to sprout is bedeviled by pests and weeds, the seed of our thoughts too can get chocked with the tares of wrong mindsets, negative ideologies, unhealthy dispositions, etc. That is why the wisest man that ever lived advised us to "keep a vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts". The mind where the seed grows is an intense battlefield where both the seeds and tares are competing for our attention, our resources, our beliefs, our loyalty, our commitment, our devotion, etc. 

In this battle, what you focus on, grows. It's like a seed in the right soil exposed to sunlight, the right temperature, constant water supply, etc. There is no reason why that seed would not germinate. If you focus on the right things, the right things will grow. If your gaze is fixed on negativity, then you already know what sort of harvest to expect. 

Apostle Paul, in his closing remark to the church in Philippi, had this to say to them, and it was documented for our learning in Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things".

As much as you desire fruits that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtue, and praise, the recommended thing is to make them the construct of your thinking. When you think on them consistently, over some time, they form a thought pattern and this degenerates into your belief system and ideologies, which will eventually govern your life and character. 

The kind of seed you sow determines the kind of harvest you will get out of it.

When you put an orange seed in the ground you expect an orange tree to grow, right? You not only wish, hope, or even expect it to grow, you know it will grow, with such certainty and audacity that it would be ridiculous to pray about it. This is so because nature follows the divine law without questioning it: what you sow is what you reap.

So, rather than a complaint about the kind of harvest you got, change the seed you planted. Rather than complaining about the quality of life, change your thoughts. Once you change your thoughts, the ideologies that govern your mindset will change. Then, it starts reflecting on your character, behavior, disposition, etc. Then your relationships begin to change. Your preferences are altered. And then your life takes a new leap.

2. Words.

The heavens and the earth were created by the spoken Word of God. Though we were not there at the beginning of beginnings to see how it all began, the re-creation episode of Genesis 1, mirrors that event for us, because what has been is what will be. 

Many times we come across situations both in scriptures and real-life experiences, where actions; though believed to speak louder than words; may be misconstrued and misinterpreted. So words will still be employed eventually, to give clarity and perspective to what is being communicated.

When the Bible says in Proverbs 6:2 that "Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth". It meant that the words you speak can ensnare or trap you. Invariably, your fate and the outcomes of the battles you fight are at the mercy of what you say. If you say you are defeated, then victory is not in view. If you profess health and strongly believe it, no sickness can hold you down. This is to demonstrate that our words too are seeds. When you speak, you are not just saying words constructed with letters of the alphabet, you are sowing seeds. And as we saw in the last point, the quality of what you sow is what determines what you harvest. 

Job 6:25 tells us How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove?

Right words are truly forcible. They are potent. They are living.  Like a seed, they can be planted with the assurance of a harvest. 

There are four sources words come from; God, Satan, men, and you (yes, You!), but only the first and last source matters most.

Satan is a master of the senses and employs any and every tool to communicate fear, defeat, failure, anxiety, etc. Satan has never and will never say anything that will or can ever favor you. His advice to Eve initially seemed harmless. It seemed like a revelation, an eye-opening, the unveiling of a hidden ancient mystery, but we know how it ended.  Satan is our sworn eternal enemy and will forever remain so. The devil is bad every time and every day. 

Men on the other hand are primarily self-centered. When God gave the verdict that Hezekiah should put his house in order, write his will, bless his children and those who will survive him, etc. We saw a king turned prayer warrior, taking hold of the four horns of the altar, armed with the book of remembrance of all his good works, crying and seeking the face, mercy, and grace of God. But the very next Time God's word came, just because he was not at the receiving end of the judgment this time around, he acted indifferent, as though he never heard what was said. 

Parents have employed the use of words wrongly and by so doing, placed a ceiling over the lives of their children. You see a father tells a child, he or she will never amount to anything in life, as though the destiny of that child was his to decide. Or you see people place words on others in the heat of anger.

However, only the word of God and what you decree over your life is paramount. God will never speak negatively towards you. For His thoughts for you have, and will always be good thoughts of peace and not evil. God's good wishes towards are contained in His word, your assignment hence, is to seek them out the enforce them in the place of prayer.

What has God said about you that have seen from His word? What has God said about that situation you want Him to intervene in? God is not committed to something He has not spoken about. His word is His bond, and He honors it more than His name. If God has not promised it, you have no basis on which to force compliance. 

You, on your part, what have you been saying. God can't be wishing you well, while you wish yourself otherwise and except God's will for your life to manifest. As powerful as God is, He can't impose anything on you. If He couldn't force salvation, which is the most valued price in the kingdom, He won't force His blessings on you. What have you been saying? Have your confessions been consistent with scriptures?  Have your words been the kind of seed that can meet your present needs as well as secure your future expectations? Have your words been prophetic enough to create the kind of future you want to live in when you arrive there, or have you fallen prey to the deceit of "take no thought for tomorrow"? When Jesus said we should take no thought for tomorrow, He never meant we should become irresponsibly carefree, laid back or lackadaisical. He was proposing a pedestal, where you trust God so absolutely, that your tomorrow never becomes a source of worry, because toy known that if God can take care of the grass of the field, He will not fail to take care of the apple of His eyes.

I'll stop here, but in the concluding part of this series, I'll be showing us the balance three of the five kinds of seeds. Please, do well to read it.

Grace and Mercy!!!

Amb. Emmanuel Etukudo

Kingdom Wealth Ambassador