Great Work Is Done While We're Asleep

And [Jesus] said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." (Mark 4:26-29)

Sabbath Poems (1979), from A Timbered Choir
Wendell Berry

Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

We must do the hard work of sowing and scattering the seed (our hands will ache and our heads must sweat), but then we leave it to grace, trusting that "great work is done while we're asleep."