Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Ecclesiastes 11:6
“Give what you have to the poor and the Master will guard them for you with the greatest security. Do you not see what farmers do? Often, when they lack seed on account of their poverty, they pawn their clothes and receive what they lacked and entrust it to the earth. Even though they have often experienced unseasonable weather and have left their fields without reaping anything, they nonetheless entrust it to the earth in hope. Is the Master therefore not able to do what the earth does?”
John Chrysostom (347-407) in On Fasting and Almsgiving.
Here John Chrysostom connects almsgiving to what farmers do. They entrust seeds to the earth in hope of a harvest. Then he says so powerfully, “Is the Master therefore not able to do what the earth does?”
Can you imagine a farmer holding on to seed in the barn? It makes no sense right. That’s the person with material wealth that holds on to it. They will reap no harvest leaving it in the barn.
And they may, like the rich fool, be relieved of their duties. Don’t let that be you. Entrust your seed to God through giving and see what the Master does with it.