For just a minute, think about how crucial farmers are for our way of life. We are so accustomed to buying food (including fresh food) year-round in grocery stores that we almost forget how much work went into planting, harvesting, and transporting our food. Think about how difficult it would be if you had to grow your own food to survive. Even though modern technology has made huge changes in the farming industry, farming is still hard work. Farmers have to be part engineer, part biologist, part chemist, part weatherman, and part businessman. There is a lot of book-knowledge and wisdom from experience that goes into being a successful farmer. Farming is hard work.

In 2 Timothy 2:3-6, Paul wanted Timothy to understand that living out his call as a Christian would be challenging and would require self-denial, focus, and diligence. The three analogies he used make his point come to life in vivid pictures: “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, and the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:3-7). 

A few years ago, I visited the home of a preacher in a beautiful valley in central Washington. As we walked around his property, he showed me his small orchard of fruit trees. He explained to me that his fruit trees have been a living parable for his ministry. He planted the orchard the same year that he began his ministry at the church where he still preaches more than 20 years later. The fruit trees on his property remind him that his life as a Christian and as a minister is not about quick flashy growth but about long term, sustainable growth. The farmer knows that to have a harvest at the end of the season he must give consistent, diligent effort for months. And in the case of orchards, it may be years before the trees mature and begin bearing much fruit. Similarly, Paul wants Timothy to know that he must be in it for the long-haul. Just like a farmer works diligently for months or even years for a harvest, we must give ourselves to the Lord’s work with diligence. And because we ultimately lean upon the Lord’s strength and not our own, we can trust that he will bless our efforts with fruit—maybe not in outwardly visible ways like numerical growth, but at least in growth in Christlikeness in our heart and in the hearts of Christians around us. Like the hardworking farmer, let us work diligently for our master so that when he returns he finds us faithful and we can find our eternal rest in him after our labors on earth are done.