You Need to Take a Shower

Sow righteousness for yourselves,
Reap the fruit of unfailing love,
And break up your unplowed ground.
For it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12

When was the last time you took a shower? I hope recently!

A hard day’s work rewards us a hot shower…and then another shower in the morning to wake the “sleepies” from our body. Showers are God’s gift to mankind…wouldn’t you all agree?

But according to this verse in Hosea, we are only privileged to a shower once we have finished the work listed above. You know…the sowing, the reaping, and the breaking.

These are terms used in gardening or farming. But the problem for some of us is that we are not gardeners. Not in the sense that everything green that we touch dies (my hand is raised), but in the sense that we want our reward without putting in the work needed to receive it.

So, let us break this down:

SOW righteousness…

What is your definition of righteousness? Let’s not get all “churchy” here. Put some thought into this.

So often, the word righteousness sticks us. We get slammed up against the pole of all our “good” doings. How righteous am I? Let me count the ways!

I don’t lie. Well, unless it is absolutely necessary.

I don’t gossip. Well, unless it is a prayer request that MUST be shared.

I don’t drink, cuss, or smoke.

We run through our checklist of righteousness patting ourselves on the back that our lives do not reflect the sinners around us.

But what if we stripped every action of righteousness? What if our righteousness was measured solely on what is within our hearts?

Righteousness comes from the heart, not how we act.

Philippians 3:9…“and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”

When our hearts are right with God, our behaviors before Him will follow in kind. I would rather come before God with a broken heart of failure than to not ever need to approach Him because I had perfected my own righteousness. Ponder that a bit!

REAP the fruit of unfailing love…

When have you experienced unfailing love? Again, don’t answer this too quickly!

Is it from a father’s love, a mother’s love? Maybe a friend? Maybe a spouse?

The truth is that we all know that love from those who love us the most is still failed love. But ironically, it is the love that we pursue the most. We long to be loved unconditionally by those around us, but that love will always fail.

God’s love is the ONLY unfailing love, and we get the incredible privilege of reaping the fruit from His love. Try to picture yourself sitting under your favorite fruit tree. Now imagine that this tree has several of your favorite fruits; mangos, bananas, kiwi, apples. If I sat under that tree reaping my favorite fruits, I would never need to get up as I enjoyed this wonderful fruit.

God’s love is just like our bountiful fruit tree. It is unfailing and always producing.

Do you find yourself reaping from His love or do you find yourself longing to reap the love from those around you who will invariably disappoint you in their love?

BREAK up your unplowed ground…

Unplowed ground is land that could be productive. But for many reasons, we have chosen not to break it up and prepare it for planting.

I think the question we need to ask here is WHY? Why would we leave fertile ground untilled?

Is it because we are afraid? If we stir up the ground and plant the seed, we will someday need to reap the seed we have sown. That takes work and we become afraid of more work.

Is it because we are tired? As in the answer above, tilling produces. Producing means reaping and maybe we are just tired not wanting to expend more energy in reaping.

But what if God was solely in charge of directing us to the ground that needs to be plowed? What if He shined a giant flashlight on a small plot of ground that will be ripe for His harvest? Do we not think that we would be energized in this breaking, sowing and reaping? Do we not think that whatever fears that are holding us back will vanish as we plow this plot of land?

Sometimes we think that God wants us to plow ALL the ground and we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed therefore freezing ourselves in these pursuits.

This verse makes it clear that it is “your” unplowed ground, not everyone else’s.

So, stop focusing too widely. Focus on only what is YOURS and get to work!

SHOWERS His righteousness on you.

For it is time toseek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

God promises that once we complete A, B, and C we will receive D…His righteousness.

Keep in mind that from part one of this verse, OUR righteousness is simply sown. But in part four, it is GOD’S righteousness that will then shower us in abundance.

What does it mean for God to SHOWER his righteousness on me? It means that everything that is right will come pouring down on me.

• Every relationship that became “unright” will become righteous when He pours it on me.
• Every action that was “unright” will become righteous when He pours it on me.
• Every hurt that was “unright” will become righteous when He pours it on me.
• Every decision that was “unright” will be become righteous when He pours it on me.

The showering of God’s righteousness is the longing each of us as believers should have. He has the power to make everything we have done “unright” right!

Having a right relationship with Him should be the daily desire of our heart. Allowing Him to shower this on us should drive our souls. But does it? Do we grow impatient for the showering of His righteousness that we begin to seek it on our own? Do we create a righteous world around us by our “perfect, well-behaved self” that we miss the glory of His showering.

You see, we can create our world out of our own control. Some can do a surprisingly good job. We get anxious waiting for His righteousness to come, so we lean heavily on our own righteousness. We try to right our own “unright”. Instead of allowing Him to shower it on us.

Creating our own righteousness requires certain behaviors of ourselves and others to define what is righteous. But sowing our righteousness as in part one, is pursuing a right relationship with God. As we bask in this pursuit of Him and not the behaviors we feel required of us, we will find ourselves seeking only Him.

I don’t know about you, but I am going to sow righteousness, reap unfailing love, and break up unplowed ground as I wait for my shower!

Written by Melody Westbrook. 
Melody Westbrook is the founder of The Walk Ministries, a ministry designed to bring women together through God’s story. She was a pastor’s wife for 35 years and has authored the book The Walk Back to Eden. She is a communicator who loves to tell God’s story written within each of us while using her personal experience of a broken marriage and childhood survivor of abuse to communicate God’s redemption story. She loves teaching real women real stories of real life from God’s word. You can find her at http://facebook.com/thewalk.edw/