BREAD CASTING
By Richard Lineberry

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.
Eccl. 11:1

When my youngest son was about ten, he brought home a leftover helium filled balloon from a birthday party. Being an adventurous kid, he decided he’d tie a note with his name, phone number and address on it and let it go to the mercy of the wind from our back yard. Hopefully, he thought, someone will find it far away and call me.
“Fat chance,” I thought, but encouraged him along anyway. Sure enough, about two weeks later he got a call from another boy from someplace in rural Arkansas that had found his balloon in the woods while he and his father were hunting. Wow!
I didn’t think of it at the time, but my son was sowing with anticipation that a reaping (response) would return due to his faith in the process. God’s giving and receiving works like that. If we are in need of receiving, a sure way to receive is to be a giver. “Casting the bread,” of course, refers to anything we might do for or give to others for their benefit. The problem most of us have with this verse is the “after many days you will find it again” part. Returns on investments may not always come as quickly as we’d like. God (or nature itself) is not on our time schedule. Even the best seed may take years to take root, grow up and bless us back. But our impatience should not be a deterrent. Verse 6 of the same chapter tells us, “Sow your seed in the morning and at evening, let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” Here’s the answer on what we should sow and where? Answer: All kinds of seeds in as many places as we can find. When you sow, quit worrying. Some may produce, some may fall on dry ground. But the surprise is that when God returns the produce you don’t always know where it came from.
I’ve experienced it many times. God has given me needed provision from places I least expected it. People have called me with encouragement at times when I hardly expected they had even been praying for me. I have seen my prayers for people that I prayed for many years ago and forgotten about fulfilled when we crossed paths at a later time. Seed sowing works. The key is to sow continually so we’ve given God a lot to work with. Seeds, of course, are not just money (although that’s a good thing to plant in His Kingdom) but also prayers for others, acts of kindness, cheerful words, anonymous service and anything else you can think up that sounds like something God might like to see done.
The soil of the kingdom of God is fertile ground. Where you see God active, that’s a good place to get involved. Sow to it. Pray for it. If you see God at work in certain people, bless them however you can. Look for people who are already serving God and try to help them out. Some of them may think they don't need any help but actually they do, so sow some help their way. Sow when times seem good as well as when it isn’t convenient. The winds of opposition may be strong, but our faith in God’s working is stronger.