The language of sowing and reaping comes from the world of agriculture. It’s about cause and effect: the seeds you plant lead directly to the harvest you’ll gather. This proverb is about the natural consequences of our actions. And you find this bit of wisdom sprinkled throughout God’s Word. One example is in Galatians 6.

Galatians 6:7-9

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

It is a biblical principle that we reap what we sow. Cause and effect is a fundamental law of life. It’s just a part of the world God has created. Here, the Apostle Paul lays out this principle: whenever you sow to the flesh, you reap destruction. You’re going to reap corruption because the flesh is corrupted. But sowing to the Spirit reaps eternal life.

Each choice we make has some natural consequence:

• If you overspend, you go into debt. If you overeat, your health will suffer.
• But if you save your money, you’ll enjoy greater security. If you exercise, you’ll be healthier and you’ll live longer.
• The OT book of Proverbs is full of this kind of wisdom.

But sometimes, people don’t reap what they sow, because someone else steps in and reaps the consequences for them. In their book, Boundaries, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend point this out. Remember our story from last week? John was twenty-five years old, flunked out of school and living at home with his parents with no job, smoking weed and playing video games all day. But he never reaped any consequences for his actions — his parents continued to shield him from any meaningful consequences. Every time he ran out of money, his parents bailed him out. When he was dismissed from one school, they enrolled him in another. His parents were there to bail him out every time.

From the book:

Today we call a person who continually rescues another person a codependent. In effect, codependent, boundary-less people ‘co-sign the note’ of life for the irresponsible person. Then they end up paying the bills — physically, emotionally, and spiritually — and the spendthrift continues out of control with no responsibilities …. Establishing boundaries helps codependent people stop interrupting the Law of Sowing and Reaping in their loved one’s life. Boundaries force the person who is doing the sowing to also do the reaping.

Does loving someone mean that you should always shield them from the consequences of their actions?

Absolutely not.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to let someone suffer the natural consequence of their actions.

That’s exactly how God deals with us.

There are times when, in His wisdom, God chooses to shield us from the consequences of our actions. Certainly He does this in an ultimate way by sending Jesus to die on the cross. Our sinful actions deserve death, but Jesus rescues us by taking our place. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. So we can acknowledge that in this ultimate way, God has truly rescued us from the repercussions of our choices.

But there are plenty of other times when God upholds the principle of responsibility and the principle of reaping and sowing. There are plenty of times when God subjects us to the natural consequences of our actions. That’s because good boundaries come with consequences.

We talked about Adam and Eve back in the first week of this series. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God cast them out of the garden (Gen. 3:23). They had to suffer the natural consequence for bringing sin into their lives.

Does that mean God didn’t love Adam and Eve? No! Nothing could be further from the truth! Right there in the midst of this pronouncement of judgment, God makes what we’ve referred to as the seed promise of Genesis 3:15. At this early stage in history, God reveals that He already has a plan in mind for the Son of Man, the Messiah, to overcome the work of the evil one. And yet, Adam and Eve still must suffer the consequence for their sinful choice. They had to reap what they had sown. They had to leave the garden with all of its security and abundance and instead they had to live in a world of their own creation.

Good boundaries come with consequences. Boundaries without consequences are not boundaries. They’re just meaningless suggestions. It doesn’t make God unloving to reinforce good boundaries by having natural consequences. And it doesn’t make you unloving if you establish good boundaries and consequences in your relationships.