Plow today. Harvest...next year? Proverbs 20:4

Sluggards do not plow in season;
so at harvest time they look but find nothing.
Proverbs 20:4

Every overnight success is the product of years of planning and hard work. We plow the fields at a time when there's no hope of growth. We plant seeds at a time when there's no hope of harvest. Only after months of hard work do we reap any rewards for our labors. So why do we bother plowing in the first place? Because YHVH is a God of order, patterns, and covenants. We work hard today with no expectation of immediate rewards--or even rewards in this lifetime--because God has created a world in which even an atheist can have faith that one thing inevitably follows another.

See also Luke 14:27-33.

From Jay Carper at http://www.AmericanTorah.com.