At the end of the day as I am falling off to sleep, I often reflect upon the day that is almost done. I think about the things I have done, what I have accomplished, if anything. In these days of covid, I have to admit that my list of good deeds done is often very, very short. When you can’t go anywhere, or most anywhere, for fear on contracting the virus, there is not much one can do that merits praise or good feeling of any kind.
That said, it is so much easier to look for the self-pats-on-the-back that I can give than reflect on the missed opportunities there were to determine if what I have done has enabled others to, if you will, go and do likewise. As a wise person one once observed, we should not judge each day by the harvest we reap but by the seeds that we plant. If you are like me, it is so very easy to admire the harvest, if there was any, than rue the time we wasted in not taking time to plant seeds.
Of course, the truth is that we plant seeds all the time whether we realize it or not, whether conscious of that fact or not. Everything we say or do is a seed that is planted in another or others. Those seeds can be very good or very bad. When we have done something that helps another or others, we have planted a seed in them. What they do with that seed – emulate it or ignore it – is up to them. But we have planed a seed.
The same is true when others plant seeds in us by the examples they set – good or bad. What we do with those seeds is up to us. Over the years I have become a better person because the good seeds planted in me by others I allowed to grow and take hold in me. On the other hand, there have been times, all too many I must honestly admit, that I have allowed a bad see to take hold in order to justify something I did that I really knew was wrong and should not have done.
Whenever I reflect back my day or days, week or weeks, I have to wonder about all those missed opportunities there were to plant seeds, good seeds, in others by things that I have done and by things I have left undone, words and actions. I cannot go back and do a make-over. I can only rue my failings and determine to be more aware of those opportunities to plant good seeds when they come my way.
The danger, certainly, when I have indeed planted some good seeds, or think I have, is to take pride in what I have done rather than be thankful that God has given me the grace and strength to do what I should do and should be doing all the time. It is truly no great praise-worthy deed to do what I should be doing. It is simply fulfilling my responsibility as a Christian.
At the end of the day, if we can reflect back on what examples we have given to the people we have encountered by the way we have lived and know we have done the best we could, we can rest in peace. That’s all we can ask of ourselves and all God asks of us.
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