Investment In Difficult Times

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Ec 11:1 AV)

 If we are not aware of the culture of the times, we may think this is something hard to believe.  If you cast your bread on the water, a bird flying by might help himself.  Or, a panfish may nibble away at it.  If you cast your bread on the waters, it will dissolve.  It certainly wouldn’t be there after many days.  If cast on a river, the current would sweep it away.  In any way you might look at it, it seems highly improbably that if you threw your bread on the waters you might find it again after many days.  Even if you did, there is a real possibility you would not gather it again.  So, what is our beloved sage speaking of here?  What principle can we glean?  No pun intended.  Our writer is speaking of casting seed for making bread upon a flooded field that after many days, the seed will take root and produce a crop.  There are several takeaways from this.  The writer is teaching the principle of investment.  He is making the simple statement that if one wishes to reap, he must sow.  There is another point to be made here as well.  Realizing fruit by one’s efforts takes time.  The reader is encouraged to cast seed upon the waters.  However, it is after many days the Sower shall find that seed returning fruit to his account.  What we want to cast our attention upon today is one little word – ‘waters’.  We want to note it is not the fields upon which the Sower sows.  We also want to notice the plural nature of the waters.  Not just a single body of water, but multiple bodies of water.  This suggests there has been a flood and the fields are not the easiest to sow.

I have slopped around in flooded fields before.  Hunting the edges of fields that have yet to be prepared for planting, one must trudge through some really hard stuff.  I have lost a boot or two.  As the mud builds up on the boot and weighs it down, it will soon slip off the foot, and one steps right into a mound of mud.  I cannot imagine how sowing seed in such conditions would be an easy task.  Then there is the impression that casting seed on standing water may not be an effective way of sowing the field.  The farmer might also assume the seed will rot away before the water dries up.  In reality, casting seed on the water is an effective way of doing the sowing.  The seed does not stack.  It stays all at the same level.  The wind and current of the water may cause the seed to be swept into one area, but if you use the wind as your friend, you could stay put and allow nature to assist you in the sowing.  This water, from a simpler perspective, does not appear as advantageous.  It makes sowing harder.  It unpredictably scatters the seed, and it may cause some of the seed to be lost.  This is our imperfect perception.  The writer states just the opposite.  Get the seed out there even in less than perfect conditions and you will reap after a while.

We are too impatient.  We want to see immediate results.  We want to see the shoots spring up and the fruit grows out.  We want to see our barns full before the root even takes ground.  We want to see results from our efforts and if we don’t, we give up.  The more impatient we are, the more the waters will seem cumbersome.  The more impatient we are, the less effort we will extol in following up with the seed that has been scattered.  The waters take time to abate.  The waters make our chore to sow all the more difficult.  But the waters are there for a reason.  They are there so the seed can have the best possible set of circumstances upon which to spring up.  Take courage.  The seed will drop in the fertile and well-watered ground.  Some will spring up into everlasting life.  It is for this we must patiently wait.