Garden of Delight

We weighed the basket that we got in from the garden this morning - 9 pounds - green beans and tomatoes and passion fruit. And we have two stalks of bananas ripening in the garage. When I left the Oklahoma farm for university, I said goodbye to the farm, thinking it was forever. Now we have our own "little farm," and the street ministry has a lot of farm land in which our students can learn agriculture and which help feed the kids as well.

Tonight I went out where young passion fruit vines are growing near the fence. I took twine and began to disentangle the strands of vine to tie them up on the fence. The passion fruit complained that I was hurting them, as I had to break some of their tendrils that cling on other surfaces in order to raise them higher where they could grow better. They thought I was being mean to them. So they cried out in pain, and they did not understand that I had a better plan for them.

So it must be with God at times. He works in our lives, shaping and molding and creating a future for us. And we hate change and pain, and we cry out against Him, or we seek some other answer to life besides His patient but pain-giving tending of our lives. And He has a better plan for us than we can make for ourselves, sinking our tendrils into the lower parts of the earth, when He would have us climb and produce.