What We Sow We Reap

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

-Gal.6:7
DEAR friend the article you are reading is about the law of sowing and reaping. It is an axiom of life that we reap what we sow.

Our thoughts and our actions have consequences from which we cannot choose. You cannot sow tomatoes and expect to harvest mangoes.

I have two stories to tell to illustrate the implications of this law; one is a biblical record and the other a more recent event.

In Bezek lived a king called Adoni-Bezek. He was noted for the amputations of the thumps and big toes of kings he defeated in war.

As fate would have it, his territory was overrun by enemy forces resulting in his capture.

In the book of Judges 1:4-7 the word of God says, “Then Judah went up, and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they killed ten thousand men at Bezek. And they found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him; and they defeated the Canaanites and Perizzites. And Adoni-Bezek fled, and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his his thumbs and big toes. And Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.”

The universe operates on the principle of cause and effect. Adoni-Bezek planted wickedness in the lives of the kings he conquered and accordingly reaped wickedness from those who captured him.

It is simple. If you want God to bless you, you must bless people. This reminds me of the lyrics of one popular musician who said, “If you do good you do for yourself; if you do bad you do for yourself.”

In a more recent case, Hassan Hanafi, a renowned Somali journalist was executed by a firing squad in April this year after he was found guilty by a military court of masterminding the murder of five colleague journalists by the Islamist militant al-Shabab.

Hanafi started his career as a broadcast journalist with an Islamic FM station in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

He later became a paid agent of the Islamist militant group al-Shabab and joined its propaganda radio station Andalus. He was vociferous in championing the cause of al-Shabab.

He would invite his colleague reporters and urge them to join the militant group. Those who were opposed to his overtures were then monitored and their movements communicated to the militants. Through his diabolical plans, five journalists were murdered by the Islamist group.

In all 25 journalists were murdered in Somalia between 2007 and 2011. The victims were shot from close range in the streets or at a hotel. Some were killed by explosive devices that were secretly planted on their vehicles.

Hanafi later had problems with the militants. In 2011, he was tried by an al-Shabab court for an unspecified crime. The court found him guilty and ordered his limbs to be amputated.

The sentence was never carried out for obvious reasons; he had been a very helpful person to the group. He managed to escape and took refuge in neighbouring Kenya.

In 2014, he was arrested by Kenya police who after preliminary investigations extradited to Somalia to stand trial for the crimes he had committed.

A military court in Somalia found him guilty of being behind the killings of some of his colleagues and passed a death sentence on him. He was subsequently tied to the stakes and executed by firing squad.

As the saying goes, “those who live by the sword die by the sword.” Hanafi admitted being behind the killings of some of his colleagues. He “sowed death and reaped death.”

The law of sowing and reaping is a universal law. We must be wary of our thoughts and actions. What we give, we get. We reap what we sow. If you want peace and happiness, help people find peace and happiness for their lives. If you want blessings in your life, find a way and bless others. If you want your life to overflow with good things, do good things to people. In a word, don’t do that which will not help your neighbor. Avoid evil and do good.

Yours in inspiration,
Abundant Robert K. AWOLUGUTU
EMAIL: [email protected]