John Stott quote and proverb

I tend to have an affinity for Evangelical Anglican theologians. If you look among Bible-believing Anglicans such as John & Charles Wesley, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright and others, you'll find some of my favorite theologians. Because they are Anglicans, I can expect them to be well-educated, Biblically literate, intellectually coherent, and deeply formed in the great tradition of the holy catholic Church across the ages. Because they are Evangelicals they really, well, believe this stuff; they actually care about their faith in Jesus Christ.

One whom you may or may not know is John R. W. Stott. Rev. Stott has been a priest and leader in the Church of England for dacades now. He is widely-read and respected in Evangelical circles, and his best-known book is probably Basic Christianity.

I read a couple of Stott's books in seminary (to supplement my own 'official' curriculum with some well-respected Evangelicals) including one book dealing with the issue of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” called Baptism and Fullness. I've had on my mind lately an old (English?) proverb that he shares in chapter 3 of this book:

“Always, invariably, we reap what we sow (see Gal. 6:7). Therefore, because of the faithfulness of God, we can determine in advance what we shall reap by deciding what we shall sow. If I were a farmer wanting to harvest a crop of oats, I would have to sow oats...the same principle applies to human behaviour. If the Holy Spirit is to produce good fruit in our lives, then we have to sow good seed. The old proverb puts it well:

Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny."

This presents us with an important aspect of the classical teaching on virtue (as seen, for example, in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics) in a pithy saying.

The question for each of us, as we look at our lives, is this, 'What are you 'sowing'?'