harvest – Michele Huey

Is anything too hard for the LORD? —Genesis 18:14 NIV

That horse manure sure did the job.

I canned fifteen quarts of fresh tomatoes. And there was still more on the porch and plants.

We hadn’t planned on having so many tomatoes—and I sure hadn’t planned on canning ever again. At this stage of the game, I wasn’t looking for more work. All we wanted was a small garden so we could enjoy a few fresh fruits and vegetables.

So, in the spring we bought a half dozen tomato plants and a couple of pepper plants, put in a row of green beans, and scattered a few cucumber seeds. And, since our soil is absolutely horrible when it comes to supporting anything we sow, my DH (dear husband) dumped on a healthy heaping of horse manure.

Then our son gave us a dozen tomato plants and a half dozen pepper plants—leftovers which had languished for at least a week, unwanted and uncared for, after he’d planted his garden.

DH is not a man to waste anything. He plowed and harrowed another section in the yard, planted the donations, and fenced it in. He had such fun. I didn’t mind because never in my wildest dreams did I imagine those drooping, half-dead, pathetic plants would produce so much. It must have been the manure. Or the weather. Or luck. Or maybe it was the tender loving care DH lavished on them.

People can be like those dying, castoff tomato plants—without a hope until someone says, “I’m going to try to save you,” and then prepares a place where they can grow undisturbed, nourishes them, plucks the weeds, and lovingly cares for them. Sometimes our efforts make a difference. Sometimes they don’t. But I believe we are better for trying. And you never know when the turnaround will come.

I tend to cast people off as hopeless cases at times, too. Their needs are just too great, their problems too overwhelming. The answer is, in my eyes, impossible.

But I forget. Our God is the God of the impossible. Is anything too hard for Him? He who spoke creation into being, whose mighty power calmed the winds and stilled the storm—and transformed life after life after life? He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He who cares for the insignificant sparrow can take droopy, half-dead, castoff human beings, transplant them, and nurture them until they, too, produce a harvest. Look at Sarah and Abraham. Mary Magdalene. Zacchaeus. Matthew. Paul.

My own eyes have seen the transformation of a man whom I thought was an impossible case. A castoff with more problems than I thought even prayer could handle. But God showed me different. Impossible? For God—nothing is impossible.

It just goes to show—never count anyone (or anything) down and out—no matter what it appears like. You never know what a little TLC will do.

Dear God, help me never to give up on anyone—ever. Amen.

Read and reflect on Isaiah 55:8–13.

“Let both grow together until the harvest.” – Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 13:30 NIV

Oy, what a world we live in! Just booting up my computer for the day’s work can be depressing. I check my email first. Thank heavens for spam filters, which separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I have it set on the highest setting, but still some garbage sneaks through. Then there are the forwards with the dire warnings of bad luck if I don’t pass them on. Phooey on them all. Once in a blue moon I’ll read one. One day, though, I did.

It was from my brother about jury duty. Seems that some shysters are calling folks, posing as court officials and telling them there’s a warrant out for their arrest because they didn’t report for jury duty. When the innocent party protests that they never even received a summons, the con on the other end tells them he’ll check into it, just give him your Social Security number and date of birth. Sometimes they even ask for a credit card number. Give them the information they want, and the nightmare of identity theft follows. (Check the validity of scams online at snopes.com.)

Then there are headlines, equally depressing. While most of them are about Covid-19 (IMO most are political propaganda to manipulate the public’s opinion of the current administration), once in awhile there’s some real news.

Like the article about the hype in Boston back in 2007. City officials were livid—the article’s word, not mine—over an advertising campaign for a late-night television program. Seems that the broadcasting company put up electronic signs on bridges and other obvious places—thirty-eight in all—of a blinking cartoon character giving passersby an obscene gesture. This led to shutting down highways, bridges, and a section of the Charles River, sending in the bomb squad and costing the city a half a million dollars.

“Commerce was disrupted, transportation routes were paralyzed, residents were stranded and relatives across the nation were in fear for their loved ones in the city of Boston,” said the Boston DA.

The mayor called the ploy an outrageous marketing scheme fueled by corporate greed. Well, yeah, isn’t greed what makes the world go ’round these days?

And, speaking of sickos, you better make sure you have a good antivirus program installed and don’t ever, ever let the subscription run out. Oh, and don’t forget the firewalls to prevent hackers from breaking into your computer files and stealing sensitive financial information.

Then there are the block lists to prevent corporate greed from giving you indigestion at dinnertime, the filth you have to wade through to find a decent program on television, the obscene and offensive t-shirts and bumper stickers. It’s enough to make me want to head for the hills and become a mountain woman.

Jesus warned there’d be times like this. Evil, sad to say, is here to stay, and evildoers aren’t going anywhere, either. Jesus called them tares—actually “darnel,” a weed that looked just like the wheat when it first sprouted. Only as the plants matured did the identity of the good seed and the bad seed become evident.

When you look around, Christian, and it seems that the tares are rampant, don’t despair. Instead, rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12) because, you see, the harvest is coming.

Dear God, sometimes I feel helpless and overwhelmed by the evil in the world around me. Help me to be a sturdy strand of wheat in a field of tares. Amen.