I’m obsessed with tomatoes.
Not the store bought variety that graces our winter salad bowls
with colorful tastelessness, but the ones I pulled from the vine today. Warm.
Bursting with sweet acidity. For
breakfast, lunch and dinner! But my success
was not always so.
When we first moved to the desert my experience was dismal. Unlike the gardening conditions back east, nothing
grew easily in the intense heat except for the native landscape. But I was not to be deterred. Two years ago I dug down deep into the
brittle soil and caliche of the desert ground and replaced it with glorious top
soil and compost from a nearby farm. In
effect, I created my own Edenic soil. In
the past two seasons, I have increased tomato productivity two more months by
merely improving the soil.
You can probably guess where I am going with
this. In the Parable of the Sower, the
seed was sown on the path (hardened soil), in rocky places with little soil, in
thorny soil, and finally in “good soil”.
What made the difference in the maturation of the seed was the condition
of the soil in which it was sown. Perhaps
this should be the target of our prayer as we lift up one another. The Master Gardener knows what each seed
requires for growth. We don’t. We pray for deliverance from suffering when
in fact trials may be needed. We pray for
health and wealth when another plan may be best. Might
we be better off to leave the plan in His Hands and pray instead that God does
His work in the soil of the individual heart?
While the desert soil is adequate
for its indigenous flora, the soil had to be changed up for my tomatoes to
thrive. Similarly, God may have to
change up the soil in a heart before one can hear, understand, and grow to
maturity. But the joy we will feel someday
as we see the fruit of our prayer will far surpass an obsession with the fruit
of a tomato vine.
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