The Law Of The Harvest

Retired Admiral William McCraven was a Navy SEAL for 36 years, last serving as commander of US Special Operations. He describes the SEAL version of basic training, and some of the life lessons it taught him, in a book he’s written called “Make Your Bed.” Here’s what he says about that simple lesson:

“Basic SEAL training is six months of long, tortuous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable. It is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL. But, the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships. To me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months.

“Every morning, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack--that’s Navy talk for bed.

“It was a simple task--mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle -hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proved to me many times over.

“If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made--that you made--and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”

You may have heard the saying, “Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character.” There’s a natural progression from our thought life to our behavior, to the habits we form as a result, which in turn become our character. And that quality of character determines our destiny. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”

Character is the sum of our moral qualities, developed intentionally, one decision at a time, even down to the level of making our bed in the morning. And as Christians, our character matters greatly, since it reflects the integrity of our discipleship and our faithfulness to God.

The Bible speaks of this in very clear, practical terms: (read Galatians 6:7-9).

During the spring planting season, farmers, gardeners and others sow various seeds in anticipation of their results, whether in the form of crops or beautiful landscaping--and everyone knows that the kind of seeds we plant will determine what will grow. If we plant sunflower seeds, we’ll get sunflowers. (A man in Wisconsin whose wife’s favorite flowers were sunflowers, after her death planted a 4.5 mile stretch along a highway in her memory--400 acres of sunflowers, a breath-taking sight. He then sold the seeds and donated profits to hospitals and cancer research. That’s a perfect example of planting good seeds, with good results.)

But it’s also true that bad seeds will produce bad outcomes. Wrong choices and decisions will bring misery and remorse. Ask any addict or inmate, or pregnant teenager, or lonely millionaire. I think it’s very true, as someone has said, that we’re punished by sin more than for sin, in this life. Sins bears the seeds of destruction within itself.

Paul begins this passage, “Don’t be deceived. God cannot be mocked.” The laws of the moral and spiritual order are just as real and consequential as the laws of physics, such as gravity. We continue to see tragic stories of people falling off cliffs while trying to take dramatic selfies. The laws of physics demand our respect.

In the same way, there are also laws of the moral order for us to know and abide by. E. Stanley Jones, the great missionary to India, spoke of either living in harmony with life as God designed it, or paying the price of defying his intended order: “The moral laws of the Universe are deeply embedded in the constitution of things. We do not break them--we break ourselves upon them.”