Not So Fast!

I thought my garden was over for the year. But just like Lee Corso on Game Day, God is reminding me I don’t have the last say.

Despite record heat, my once wilted tomatoes are showing signs of life. New green tomatoes are growing on the few surviving stalks. I was ready to pull them all up, but wait! Not so fast, Betsy. There is growth here; there is fruit here.

Isn’t God amazing!?! Just when I thought my garden was all dried up and lifeless, there is life! There is fruit!

Perhaps I should be accustomed to God bringing dead things back to life; He certainly has a history of doing so. Yet it always amazes me! Such joy! Such hope! How can pessimism survive in the face of such evidence?

These new green tomatoes on my dying plant remind me that with God all things are possible. If He can create the cosmos with a word and man with a breath, of course He can create new tomatoes on a dying plant. Of course He can revitalize a lagging congregation. Of course He can reunite disputing factions. Of course He can breathe energy into a seemingly hopeless situation. Of course He can!

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21.

I am often ready to give up and move on. Not just with my garden, but with all kinds of things. How many times have I set a deadline and moved on when others did not meet it? Is this efficiency or impatience? Does this tendency indicate practical realism or cynical unbelief?

My parents, German to the bone, managed our family of eight by enforcing strict time frames. If we were to leave at 5, we left at 5, whether you were ready or not. I still get anxious if I know I am running late. I try to be more gracious with others, but I still have to fight the urge to give up and move on when they are not on my schedule.

God is working on this in me. He is not on my schedule. If He has a schedule, He alone sets it. There is a rhythm to life that He has given us based on the rotations of the earth around the sun, but I sense He is not bound by that. Seasons and laws of nature are a gift to us, not a restriction on Him. 

So even though it is late August, I have little green tomatoes on my aging plants. Even though I am a widow in my sixties, I have started a blog and am learning how to write. Even though you may feel used up, tired, and dying, God can produce something new and wonderful in your life.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11.

And this life is not merely eternal, it is full and vibrant in the here and now. Life with Christ is like new tomatoes on an old plant. His Spirit within gives me the ability to be patient and flexible in my dealings with others, and with myself. He makes me hopeful and expectant rather than cynical and pessimistic. 

I am so glad I didn’t pull the plants up already. I am so grateful that I had not given up on them and moved on yet. God still had life for them to live. God still has life for me to live. God still has life for you to live.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10.

Betsy