Praying with a Painting: Seeds and the harvest

It feels fitting to be offering this prayer exercise while sitting outside in the sunshine while upstairs in my study my daughter enjoys an art lesson with my dad via video chat. Feel the sun warm your toes and the breeze gently float around you, and picture yourself somewhere where it’s not too hot and not too cool. Where the clouds pass over the sun, dampening the temperature a bit. Where you hear the cry of the blackbird in the distance.

Use my dad’s painting of a combine harvesting in late summer as a jumping point for prayer. Follow the Spirit where he leads. You might want to ponder seeds and growth in the kingdom of God from this parable of Jesus:

²⁶ He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸ All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹ As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26–29, NIV).

Bonus to come—Sharon Garlough Brown leads us in lectio divina on this Scripture passage in a video interview I will post in September!