“He spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give the seed to his brother.” (Genesis 38:9b KJV)
A few days ago, I took a quick walk down to our local grocery store to get a few things for supper. It’s a Mom and Pop organization, significantly spendier then the big box store in town, but brilliantly close and relatively stocked. As I approached the building, I passed the loading docks and noticed a significant amount of seed corn spilled on the ground. The native Iowan in me balked: all that beautiful yellow gold was wasted! But then my next thought was weird and – in hindset – definitely from the Holy Spirit. “He spilled his seed on the ground.” I knew exactly the scripture passage: it’s that whole uncomfortable reading about Tamar and her evil second husband, Onan. It’s the exchange in the night where he won’t fulfill his family duty.
At first I figured these were just goofy, overly-read preacher thoughts and I went about my way. But the whole time I was in the little market, I kept thinking about the seed on the ground outside. And when I set back out toward home with my tomato and my avocado, I passed back by the place with the corn scattered and this time I took a picture.
I wonder, how many of us can relate to Tamar? We had a dream, a God-ordained, uncomplicated dream; but someone else’s jealousy, agenda, or direct disobedience has spilled our seed all over the ground and miscarried our dream?
Consider again, the corn on the ground. Sure, it could be swept up or blown off. But that’s not how it works in our lives, is it? We pick up the remains of our dream a single seed at a time, don’t we? A shattered dream can take years to reassemble and even when we finally gather all the pieces and put it together; the dream doesn’t look quite the same as we had originally hoped.
Look at Tamar. Married to not one but two wicked husbands. Widowed twice. Waiting for years. Cast aside by an unconcerned father-in-law. It seemed her dream of having a child and carrying on the family name would never happen. Until one day, an opportunity finally came. She took matters into her own hands – perhaps God-inspired – scripture doesn’t say and we don’t quite know. What we do know is that through her father-in-law’s sin, she finally conceives and carries not one child, but two who wind up in the bloodline of the Messiah. She lives as a widow from that day forward. Her dream did not solidify quite like she hoped, but it was still fulfilled in some measure, maybe more.
I don’t know about you, but I have had my dream spilled on the ground. Someone else was careless with my ambitions and like Tamar, I was left to pick through the pieces. Salvaging the seeds from the pavement has taken significant time and effort.
I’ve had to guard my heart in the meantime. It’s easy to get bitter and throw blame when we’ve spent years bent over the pavement trying to retrieve the seeds of what was lost. We can lose our sweetness. We can become angry and slanderous.
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV)
It’s not lost on me that Paul reminds us to stay tender toward others: kind and forgiving. This is not our gut response to transgression. But with intention, we can allow our posture: bending over our task to become a knee bent in humility, also. We can consider our work as holy and so like the task of our beloved Savior: picking up the pieces of another person’s sin. We can cry but as we weep we lift our faces upward so the tears will water our heart instead of hardening it.
Friend, we live in a fallen world with fallen people. Seed will be spilled. Dreams will shatter. We will hurt. But in that hurt we always, always have a choice. We can be bitter and resentful to everyone equally. Or we can be forgiving of others and trusting of good God who can and will redeem our story. I choose the latter because the first is just miserable. There is enough misery in the world without me adding to it.
There’s a saying I like; it’s not terrible spiritual but it’s certainly true. “Awesome things will happen today if you choose not to be a miserable cow.” Life is certainly better if we refuse to be miserable cows.
Additionally; we can trust God to deal with our offender. The sinner is always subject to the wrath of God – which is exactly why is so critical for us to respond rightly when we are sinned against AND when we’ve sinned ourselves.
Lord, help us. We hurt when our seed is spilled. We often feel that things are unrecoverable. Today we acknowledge that nothing is impossible for You and no sin goes unseen. You are a redemptive God and somehow You will restore all things. Help us today to trust in You and forgive our offender. May our tears soften us, not harden us. While we wait, birth humility in our frames. We know You are our only hope. Amen.