He Supplies and Multiplies

Last updated on January 19, 2023

“He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.”

2 Corinthians 9:10-11 ESV

He will supply and multiply.

This encouraged my soul. This week I have been willing myself to write, and while that discipline is good, the results have been self-driven and therefore have not come together into something that is shareable. It doesn’t flow together at all. It is incomplete.

Then today I finally sat down for the first time in about five days and went through my Bible App reading plans. It was so good to sit again with the scriptures and to listen to them speak to my soul. In that place of Mary, Jesus’s friend, sitting humbly at His feet to enjoy and learn from Him, I am reminded of some of what I have forgotten in my absence from Him.

I am reminded of rest, recognizing and remembering that though I work and determine to shape disciplines toward growth, I am not the supplier of my resources and needs.

I am reminded that there are seasons of life, and this is very much a spring season for me. A springtime of busy transitions and fresh life forming in my home and in my growth as a writer. Though this season is full of newness, I cannot control nor multiply it in my own power, nor would it be so beautiful if I could.

He will supply and multiply my seed for sowing.

I am reminded that those words I tried so hard to muster and puzzle together weren’t words given to me by the Spirit. They were not inspired, directed, or empowered by the very One I seek to honor through them. I was trying to supply my own seed.

He says He gives me the words He wants me to say. But I have not been asking or even seeking His words. So He has not been giving. Rather than going to the Supplier of the seed, I have attempted to sow my own dead seed.

Rather than letting God cause the growth, I have been seeking multiplied fruit from my own efforts, trying to be a branch detached from the Vine. No good fruit comes from that.

So I turn from sowing seed that is never going to produce and gather my seed from the One who supplies it in the scriptures and in the abundant fruit of His Spirit produced in others. And seeds fall into my hands to sow. I receive. I remember Him. I listen. I wait. I allow His seeds to grow within my soul. And then, and only then, I let the words flow from my spirit onto the page.

He supplies and multiplies. I am a sower in the fields. 

Would you work beside me, Friend?

What seeds are you gathering lately? For me, they are words. For you, they may be something else.

From where are you gathering them? Are you positioned at the feet of Jesus and engaged with others who are bearing the fruit of righteousness so you can catch the seeds falling into your hands from the Supplier and Multiplier?

If you are catching good seed, what do the fields need right now for which you’ve been given just the right seeds? How will you sow them?