I was beginning to think it would never happen.  We had one brief—very brief—cool snap in November, but then summer returned.  We were still running the air conditioner in early January.  Finally, the third week of the new year we had several days with lows in the low thirties, one where we never topped 41, and even a few snow flurries.  Now, I said to myself.  Now I can prune the roses.
 
           You never prune the roses until they become dormant.  I was not sure three or four days of cold was enough to put them in that state, but surely they were close simply because it was time, I reasoned, and the cold was not predicted to last beyond another 48 hours so my window of opportunity was small.  So I took my clippers and went at it, cropping the thinner, more pliable stems and leaves—including those with some new red growth from the warm week before—and gave them the half to two-thirds haircut they need annually.  It will be an anxious few weeks before I find out if I ruined them.

            Dormancy is an interesting thing.  Plants, or seeds right after harvest, go to sleep.  For plants it happens with adverse conditions like low temperatures, drought, or low light.  In order to conserve energy, the plant stops growing and sheds softer tissues, replacing them with hard wood, scales, and dried tissues.  It puts on this suit of armor to protect itself.  When conditions change, warmer temperatures or enough water to live on for example, the plant wakes up and resumes its normal growth.

            After mulling it over one morning I decided that is our problem.  We never go dormant.  I defy you to study the Word of God deeply enough, and meditate long enough to reach new insights, by taking just five minutes a day to “read a chapter.”  It won’t work.  But instead of finding that precious time—instead of making it—we make excuses instead.  We stay too busy with life to slow down and spend quiet time with God.

            And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening...Gen 24:63.

            I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds, Ps 77:12.

            My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise, Ps 119:148.

            Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Ps 19:14.

            Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, Phil 4:8.

            And that is just a fraction of the verses that tell us we need to spend far more time with God than we do.  How many times did Jesus spend all night praying?  And if you have not had your prayers drift off into meditation, that may well be why you sit there thinking, “I could never pray that long.”

            Look back at the advantages of dormancy.  Dormancy is a period of rest for the plant.  God knew we needed rest.  He gave His people a day no other culture had, the Sabbath.  When everyone else was working dawn to dusk just to survive in an ancient world, He took care of their basic survival that day (as when the manna did not spoil) so they could rest, so they could spend time with family and with Him.

            Dormancy provides the plant with “a suit of armor,” protection during adverse conditions.  If you wait until the crisis arises to consider your actions, you will invariably make poor decisions.  Time to think ahead, recognizing your weaknesses and planning your “way of escape” can be critical to your spiritual survival.  Meditation will give you that time to prepare yourself.

            Dormancy gives the plant “anesthesia” for the painful tasks of pruning and grafting.  Looking at yourself in the mirror is hard enough without being forced to in the middle of a spiritual emergency.  Time alone to carefully consider and face your challenges can make the difference in whether you make the changes you need to or not.  In the face of rebuke, too many of us consider it too painful to even consider the notion that we might need a little pruning of the character to please God.

            And then there is the greatest benefit of all:  time to develop a
relationship with your Creator.  I knew a young couple that broke off their engagement after realizing that they had absolutely nothing to talk about.  A wise young couple, I think.  If you haven’t spent enough time in His Word to have anything to talk to God about, don’t be surprised if He doesn’t break it off with you.
 
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. ​I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land-- Selah, Ps 143:5-6.
 
Dene Ward

More than once I have been outside weeding and accidentally pulled up a fistful of thorns.  Usually it’s a blackberry vine, though stinging nettles are not far behind on the list.  Either one makes for pain and blood loss for at least a little while and I try hard to look a little closer before the next pull.
 
           Not too long ago I saw a picture of a plant called “Crown of Thorns.”  It’s an import to our country, a type of cactus, but one that is notoriously picky about its surroundings.  You can only grow it in Zone 10 or higher, but once you get it going, it’s nearly impossible to kill.  It is heat and drought tolerant.  Long after other houseplants would have died from neglect, it will even bloom.

            The photos I saw made me think of the crown of thorns we are familiar with as Christians, the one the soldiers wove and placed upon Jesus’ head.  I doubt it was the same plant, but it looked as I imagined that one would, a thick stem covered with long sharp spines.  I cannot even imagine trying to weave the thing without leaving yourself a bloody mess.
 
           We sing a song with these lyrics by William Featherston:

1. My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
   For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
   My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
2. I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
   And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
   I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
3. I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
   And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
   And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   
4. In mansions of glory and endless delight,
   I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
   I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   

I missed it all my life until Keith pointed out the thirds lines of verses 2 and 4.  “I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow,” and, “I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow.”  Jesus wore a crown of thorns so I could wear a crown of glory.  If it was anything like those plants I saw, it was a bigger sacrifice than one might ever have thought, but the symbolism is profound because everything he went through that horrible night was for me.  And you.  Even that prickly crown.

Now, as his disciples, what sort of crown am I willing to wear for others?  Can I, as the Corinthians were chided to do, give up my liberties?  Can I concede a point even if I know I am right because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter?  Can I stop an argument instead of continuing one?  Can I let someone else have the last word?

Can I give up my time and convenience for the sake of someone who needs an encouraging word?  Can I skip a meal to visit the lonely?  Can I miss a ball game to hold a Bible study?

Can I stay up a little later to pray a little longer?  Can I turn off the TV to spend some time in the Word?  Can I make teaching my children about God a priority instead of something we just try to fit in when we can?

None of those things will cause the kind of bloodletting those thorns did, but if I cannot even do those paltry things, how can I even hope to wear that “glittering crown on my brow?”  If that makes me uncomfortable and ashamed, good.  That’s why we sing those songs.  They are to teach and admonish, not produce feel-good pep rallies.

When I am weeding in the garden, I do my best to avoid the thorns.  Maybe in life, I should be out there looking for a few to wear.
 
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe, John 19:2

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2Tim 4:7-8.
 
Dene Ward

Several years ago I received a pot of rust colored chrysanthemums as a gift.  I enjoyed them for many days before they began to fade.
            “Well that’s that,” I thought as I placed them on the outside workbench so Keith could salvage the dark green plastic pot for other uses.  By the time he got to them, they were brown and withered, as dead looking as any plant I had ever seen.
            Keith cannot stand to throw things away.  “It might come in handy,” he always says as he pulls things out of the trash.  That is why he stuck those dried out flowers in the ground beneath the dining room window.  Yet even he was amazed when a few days later green leaves sprouted on those black stems.  It was fall, a mum’s favorite season, and before long I had twice as many as I had started with.
            Fast forward to Thanksgiving, a year later.  I now had a bed full of rust colored mums about two feet square.  The next year the bed was four feet wide and my amaryllises were swamped.  Keith built a raised bed about eight feet square, half of it for the mums and the rest for a plumbago, a miniature rose, and a blue sage.  That has lasted exactly one year.  The plumbago, rose, and sage have been evicted by the mums and need a new home.
            What started as one six inch pot of mums, withered and brown, has become 64 square feet of blooms so thick they sprawl over the timbers of the raised bed into the field surrounding it.  Whenever I cut an armful for a vase inside, you cannot even tell where I cut them. 
            We often fall prey to the defeatist attitude, “What can one person do?” Much to the delight of our Adversary we sit alone in the nursery pot, wither, and die.  Yet the influence we have as Christians can spread through our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our communities.  The good deeds we do, the moral character we show, the words we do—and don’t—say make an impression on others.  Those are the seeds we plant, never giving in to the notion that one person cannot accomplish anything.  The attitudes we show when mistreated and the peace with which we face life’s trials will make others ask, “Why?  Can I have this too?  How?”
            Plant a seed every chance you get.  If a six inch pot of dried up mums can spread so quickly, just think what the living Word of God shown through your life can accomplish.
 
And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God?  Or in what parable shall we set it forth?  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth,  yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof, Mark 4:30-32.
 
Dene Ward

Seems like every August one of the morning network shows will have a spot on what to do with all those tomatoes.  Unfortunately, those shows usually air from New York City where they seem to think that everyone thinks like they do and lives like they do, and that even the weather follows suit.  New York City must be the center of the universe.  
    Down here in Florida our tomatoes are 1 to 2 months gone by the time those shows air, depending upon the year.  We eat and give away those perfectly formed, unblemished firstfruits from the last week of May till halfway through June.  Then I spend a week canning tomatoes with the plum varieties, and a few days on specialty items like salsa and tomato jam.  Another week using up the end of the year uglies on sauce, and that’s that.  It’s a rare year that I have tomatoes after the Fourth of July.
    And guess what?  In the south part of this long state, things are different still.  Tomato season Is different for every location and climate.
    It’s like that for Christians too.  Not only do different spiritual ages have differing levels of understanding, but even different locations fight different battles.  A long time ago, we moved north.  Talk about culture shock.  Not only did I see my first snow, we had to fight heresies that had been fought down south ten years earlier.  You can see those things happen in the New Testament too, as trouble travels from city to city.  
    We can also discover exactly how patient—or impatient—we are with our brothers and sisters.  I forget how long it took me to reach this point and expect it of them in a few short weeks.  I become annoyed with their failures and with their lack of understanding.  Somehow I expect them to leapfrog a few decades and catch up.
That is not how it works, and we must make allowances.  It may mean we are more careful in our decision making, and it may mean we give up our liberties.  It’s one thing to be held hostage by the views of the stubborn who claim they are “offended;” it’s quite another to trample on the fragile souls of those new in the faith, who are still grappling with the baggage they have not quite left behind.  
And let us not deter, or even discourage completely, their salvation with some manmade list of things they should know before we accept them into our congregations.  Smacks a little of catechism class, doesn’t it?  Just how much do you think that Philippian jailor knew when Paul baptized him “in the same hour of the night?”  Enough to understand his need for a Savior and how to contact that redeeming blood.  He had a lifetime to learn the rest.
    Tomato season for me is not tomato season for you, and my Christian age is not the same as yours.  If you expect a green tomato to taste like one that has been vine-ripened in a home garden, you are not as wise as you think you are.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me,  Rom 15:1-3.

Dene Ward

I’ve often thought that Keith is a frustrated farmer.  If things had worked out differently, perhaps in another era even, that is exactly what he would have been.  Working the ground suits him well because he cannot sit still and he doesn’t think he has really worked unless he gets filthy in the process. 

            That garden of his has also done well by us.  I do not know how we would have survived without it.  Others with teenage boys spent nearly twice as much as we did on groceries and we ate as well or better than they, especially in the middle of summer.  For weeks the table was loaded with platters of fresh corn and tomatoes, and bowls of whatever beans or peas were producing at the time, with other extras added in as they ripened—fried okra, cucumber salads, cherry tomato salads, and homemade pickles, fried, or scalloped or “parmagiana-ed” eggplant, peppers stuffed with ground beef, rice, onions, and herbs and baked in a homemade tomato sauce, squash stir-fried or layered in casseroles with cheese sauce and cracker crumbs, homemade biscuits slathered with blueberry jam, muscadine, scuppernong, and blackberry jellies, and anything else I could come up with to use up all the bounty and fill up all the men.  

            They say there are holidays between May and September.  Really?  I suppose there are days when Keith does not go to work, but those just mean more work in the garden.  We spend Memorial Day snapping green beans and shelling peas, and putting the first of those in the freezer along with the last of the blueberries, and canning blueberry jam.  July 4th means corn shucking time--usually the second patch is in by then--and an assembly line in the kitchen putting up a couple dozen quarts.  The rest of the summer “break” we spend with yet more “putting up” of pickles, limas, black-eyes, and zipper peas, tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, chili powder, herb vinegars, and finally, the muscadine jelly in August.  Labor Day means catching up on all the things we had to let go when the fruits and vegetables came in, plus tilling the now spent and bedraggled garden under to help prepare the ground for next year. 

            We often missed outings, barbecues, and other summer events because of the garden work.  Why?  Because without that garden we would not have made it.  What may be a hobby for some was a necessity for us.  Times have been rough and it was the only way to feed our family well for the money we had.  I did not buy a jar of tomatoes, tomato sauce, jelly, jam, salsa, or pickles for twenty years.  You want to hear some stories?  I can tell you how to make one chicken feed your family for four days.

            Some of us want to treat our service to God like a hobby, like a garden we don’t really need, we just go out and putter around in it when the notion suits us.  We fail to realize that it is necessary to our survival.  We have mistaken the fact that we have enough in this life to mean that we have enough for the next too, without all that commitment, service, and labor nonsense.  So we go out once or twice a week and pull a weed, thinking that is all that is necessary, that God will supply the water and fertilizer for us and give us a bumper crop, which He will reap and can for us to enjoy some time in the future.  Why, isn’t that what grace is?

            As long as Christianity is nothing more than a pleasant little pastime, and the church a nice little social club, we are more than happy to take up some time with it.  But we will never reap any rewards until we treat it as a career necessary to keep us and our families alive. 

            Many of us are willing to throw money at practically any cause.  It makes us feel good.  What God demands is our time and our labor, things we Americans are often loath to give to anyone but ourselves.  There are no holidays for Christians, not until you understand that the blessings a Christian receives make every day a holiday from the curse of sin and the chains of Satan.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.  1 Cor 15:58.

Dene Ward

 

            The garden has come and gone.  Day after hot, humid day I stood in the kitchen, scalding, blanching, peeling, seeding, chopping, mixing, packing, freezing, pickling, preserving and canning.  After an hour or more in the garden, followed by six hours of standing in the kitchen, my back ached, my feet throbbed, and I had a knot between my shoulders blades.  Then the next day I got up and did it again.  In the evenings we shelled and snapped until midnight or our hands ached too much to continue, whichever came first. 

            So why did I do it?  Because it had to be done.  This is one way we manage not only to survive on what we make, but to eat fairly well in spite of what we make.  This is how we fed two teenage boys and remained financially solvent.  And it wasn’t all bad.

            Some days I managed to do a lot of meditating while I worked.  When you must do the same action over and over, like peeling four hundred tomatoes, it becomes automatic, so you can use your mind for better things, pondering recent lessons you have heard, drawing conclusions from verses you have read, and praying through some of the problems that beset you. 

            Keith helped me out.  I am not quite what I used to be, and the live-in help left quite a few years ago.  We cannot “chat” over our work as most couples can.  Sometimes I touched his arm to get his attention so I could tell him something I thought important.  Other times he spoke (since I don’t have to see to hear) and then I could reply when he looked up.  Once or twice we got into a friendly competition.  He still cannot fill a jar as quickly as I can—his hands are bigger and not as well trained, but what he could do still meant jars I did not have to fill myself.  And even after forty-one years, or more probably because of them, it was pleasant to be together.

            The other day Lucas said something like, “Isn’t it funny how we look forward to the garden starting, and then near the end look forward to it ending?”  And he is right—except for the peppers, things are nearly at an end, and I am glad.  Still, at the end of each day’s work the past few months, I looked on the rows of jars cooling on an old rag of a towel laid across the countertop and felt a sense of accomplishment, despite the occasional tedium, the many aches, and the pools of sweat on the floor from the rising steam in the kitchen.

            I wish you could see my pantry—twenty-three jars of tomatoes, fifteen jars of salsa, eighteen jars of dill pickles, a dozen jars each of okra dills and pickled banana pepper rings, and thirty jars of three kinds of jellies and jams.  Then open the freezer—two dozen bags of corn, twenty bags of green beans, ten bags of lima beans, eight bags of zipper cream peas, twelve quarts of tomato sauce, and eight quarts of blueberries.  The best is yet to come though, when my grocery bill totals half what it might have been and ultimately, when we eat it all.

            So maybe it was not what some might consider a “summer vacation.”  In fact, I also had a couple of days worth of testing at the eye clinic mixed in there somewhere, but it was a worthwhile venture that did us far more good than tanning at a beach might have. 

            I think living a Christian life might be the same sort of vacation.  Some days it is hard work.  Some days it is tedious.  Some days it causes us pain.  But we can make even the worst days better by meditating on the comfort in God’s word, and by talking to Him whenever we want to.  We have a spiritual family who will help bear our burdens, who will weep when we weep and rejoice when we rejoice, people who will make the bad days go quicker and the good days even happier.

            And then before you know it, it’s almost over.  But there are things we can look back on with satisfaction, unlike our friends in the world who will have so much to regret.  They will also have nothing to look forward to, while for us the best is yet to come, and aren’t we looking forward to that? 

            For all of us summer will soon turn to fall, and after that the winter.  Make sure your pantry is full.

And I heard the voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them, Rev 14:13.

Dene Ward

Keith had to have some fairly serious surgery last year and since he is 90% deaf, the doctor arranged for me to be in his hospital room as his caregiver 24/7.  He does read lips fairly well, but lip reading is not the perfect solution to the problem.  He must “fill in the blanks,” so to speak, as his mind tries to interpret the sounds his ears miss, which is most of them.  It takes a lot of concentration, and when he is tired or does not feel well, he simply cannot hear at all.  But over the years I have learned how to communicate in all the various ways, from hand signals to pantomime to pointing at people or things to carefully wording without overdoing the mouth movements or using too many words. 

            So for six days we were both away from home and wouldn’t you know it, it was the height of garden season.  When we came home I had to do it all because he couldn’t even lift more than 10 pounds for two months, let alone bend over to pick vegetables or drag hoses.  That first week was the worst.  I picked every morning, sprayed the whole garden twice, (we’re talking an 80 x 80 garden here), pulled cucumber vines covered with blight, chopped out and hauled away the old corn stalks, placed folded newspapers under 50 cantaloupes so they wouldn’t rot on the ground (a very thin-skinned variety), cleaned out weed-choked flower beds, put up both dill and red cinnamon pickles, and picked and tossed 8 five gallon buckets of squash and cucumbers that did not have the grace to stop growing while we were in the hospital!

            Of course we all know that is not going to happen.  The plants continue to grow, the blossoms continue to set, and the fruit grows far larger than you ever imagined it could.  The back field looked like a marching band had gone through throwing out big yellow saxophones as they passed.

            It works that way with children too.  I can think of dozens of things we planned to do with our boys when they were little—things we never got to.  Sometimes it was a case of no money, but sometimes we just let life get in the way.  I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything we planned that we actually accomplished at all!  But just like gardens, children keep on growing.  They don’t stop to wait until you have more time to spend with them, or more resources to spend on them.  They won’t wait till you get a bigger house or an easier job or a raise.  They won’t wait until your life is exactly like you want it.  If that’s what you are waiting for, it will never happen.  You have to set your own priorities and make it happen.

            Every summer I made my boys a chore list.  I am sure they remember it fondly!  No, probably not, but on that list was this:  “Play a game with mom.”  Guess which “chore” they never skipped?  Sometimes it was checkers, sometimes it was monopoly, sometimes it was even pinochle, a game they learned with some of their dad’s commentaries set up on the table to hide their hands because they were too small to hold all the cards at once.  Sometimes it was one of the board games I made to help them with their Bible knowledge.  And every day we had Bible study of some kind, whether just talking about things between the bean rows as we picked together or a formal sit down study. 

            These are just some ideas to help you along.  We have all heard the old poem “Children Don’t Wait.”  It’s true, and last summer I thought about that even more as I looked out over the overgrown garden.  Maybe my grandsons will reap a little from the repeat of a lesson that is never taught enough.

And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life...Deut 32:46-47.

Dene Ward

            After a few years of working at it, my flower bed is now one mass of yellow every spring.  We planted a few of those daisy-style flowers known as rudbeckia several years ago and they have gradually increased over time.  The gallardia died off, the coreopsis moved to the back field, and even the “invasive” Mexican petunias have waned as the more commonly named black-eyed susans exercised dominance in the bed.  Even most of the weeds gave up.  These flowers are here to stay now, and they are gradually spreading, with just a little help from us, over other areas of the property.

            But come the end of June the stems turn gray and furry and the flower heads brown as they “go to seed.”  It’s a long couple morning’s work to pull them up and toss them out to the field southeast of the flower bed.  We’ve noticed over the years that things tend to spread to the northwest, and sure enough, if we toss things to the southeast we will get an even fuller bed the next year.  What would happen if we just left them?  Ugly, is what would happen, and that is not what flowers are for.  Something has to be done if we want them to continue to flourish.

            I’ve noticed the same about churches.  The longer you sit on your pews with no winds stirring, no rainstorms, no blight to kill off the weak plants, no insects to fight, no cultivating to uproot the weeds, the more likely you are to go to seed.  Every church needs a good stirring up once in a while if it wants to survive.  When a church starts to “go to seed,” it can get just plain ugly.

            I’ve seen a church become the property of one family, where visitors aren’t welcome and no one even thinks about reaching out to the community.  It’s just there for convenience as they “fulfill their Sunday duty.” (Amos 5:21-24)

            I’ve seen a church become so set in its ways that, while still claiming expediency, things are done in as inexpedient a way imaginable because it would upset anyone to change a tradition.  In fact, they come close to considering it a sin to even think of it. (Matt 15:7-9)

            I’ve seen a church become, not the pillar and ground of the truth, but a source of hatefulness and division.  They call it standing for the truth when it’s really just barring the doors to anyone who might need a little more help than the type of new convert they would prefer.  (I Cor 6:9-11)

            I’ve seen churches so interested in keeping peace, they sacrifice purity, or let an obstinate brother have his way, even if it hurts the mission of the church in that community, or a weaker brother. (James 3:17)

            I’ve seen so-called sound churches spout nothing but memorized catch-phrases and slogans with the requisite “proof-texts,” none of which they can explain or use in its true context.  They talk about “no creed but the Bible” while explaining to every visitor an unwritten creed of do’s and don’ts if you want to be accepted by “us.” (3 John 9,10)

            And I’ve seen many, many churches become so afraid of doing something wrong they never manage to do anything good.  (Matt 23:23,24)

            The first of July I start pulling up plants and tossing them to the southeast.  Then Keith will come along a day or two later and run the mower over those old plants to help disseminate the seeds for next year.  For a while my bed looks pathetic, but soon it will be a sea of bright yellow waving in the spring breeze once again, in fact, it will be fuller and brighter than ever.  That will only happen after I turn it upside down and inside out.  Maybe a few more churches need to do the same thing.

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment learned by rote, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden,” Isa 29:13-14.

Dene Ward

 

            We have grown some of the ugliest tomatoes you have ever seen.  Some of them have lobes that distort their perfect globe shape into something that looks like a mutant in a horror show.  Some of them have brown creases.  Some are crescent shaped instead of round.  Some have “noses.” One in particular had the ski nose of a Bob Hope caricature.  Some look like Siamese Twins.  Excuse me for this but one looked like it needed a bra!  Usually they have spots of some sort—brown, black or white, depending upon what caused the spot.  Often they sport a bird peck or two.  If you were standing in a store looking at these things, you would turn away and look for something prettier without even giving them a sniff.

            And you would miss out on some of the best tasting tomatoes we have ever grown—especially the Cherokee Purples.  We usually have a platter of sliced tomatoes on the table every day during garden season, and many of those slices are far less than perfectly round.  It isn’t just the odd shapes, it’s also the bad spots we cut out.  As long as it hasn’t spread to the pulp, you can often save half or more of a wonderful tomato--sweet, juicy, slightly acidic, with a full round tomato flavor.

            And many times we stand in the “store” we call life and pick out the worst people just because of how good they look.  This lesson is as old as the hills and one of the first our children are taught.   No one thought David could possibly be the king God had in mind but he was because, “man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart” 1 Sam 16:7.

              But no, we haven’t learned it any better than our children have.  We still ignore the ones who stand on the periphery, who don’t share our standard of living, who don’t speak exactly like we do, who don’t dress like we do, who certainly aren’t the good-looking extroverts everyone praises and wants to be around.  We live in a society that idolizes celebrity and we do the same in the church.  Even the preacher has to be handsome, or at least famous, or we won’t invite him for a gospel meeting.

            Israel did the same thing and look what they wound up with:

And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people, 1Sam 9:2.

Now in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him, 2Sam 14:25.

            Then there was Jesus.  For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. ​He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not, Isa 53:2-3.  Do you understand that means you would have thought him plain, maybe even a little homely?  Would you have turned away from him the way you do from that one who stands off to the side at church or neighborhood or school gatherings?  Singles out there:  Does a young man or young lady have to be “hot” before you will even talk to them?

            Yep, we still stand at the tomato display looking for perfectly round red tomatoes without a single blemish and wind up with bland anemic knots that, in a blind taste test wouldn’t pass for a tomato any more than a watermelon would.  Look around you today and use the insight God gave you.  No, you can’t look on their hearts, but you can sure look a whole lot deeper than you usually do.

Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment, John 7:24.

Dene Ward

            We bought our little piece of acreage over twenty-five years ago, when nothing and no one was back here off the highway but us.  A couple of folks lived up on the main road, and maybe a half dozen within a mile of our turn off, but we were virtually alone because the deeds on the other plots were not yet free and clear for sale.

            About eight years later, things changed and a few people moved in.  Finally, inevitably I suppose, someone moved next to us.  Still, when you are at opposite ends of five acre plots with woods between you, you can pretend you are alone.  Then the folks “next door” moved their married children to the back of their five acres, and suddenly we had a neighbor about two hundred feet across the fence, way too close by our standards.

            Then they cleared out the pine trees, and some of the brush went down under the heavy equipment too.  I feel like I am on display now, especially at night, since their front door faces our front windows.  They would still need binoculars to see anything, but that doesn’t make me feel a bit better. 

            So last spring we built a twelve foot high trellis and planted a combination of confederate jasmine, purple trumpet flowers, blue passion vines, and Carolina jessamine to screen us.  By next summer it should be doing a pretty good job of that.  The tendrils of one jasmine, a couple of the Jessamines, and all the passions vines have already wound their way up to the top of the trellis.  All of them are well-established with new shoots sprouting all over the runners, and all nine plants have even bloomed this year, which we never expected after their being transplanted. 

            I was reading Proverbs 14 the other day and came across this:  By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his pride.  I just assumed it was a rod of correction, as in He who spares the rod spoils his child.  I don’t know what made me look up “rod” in the concordance, but I am glad I did because I made a discovery.  This word is not the same word usually translated “rod.”  In fact, it is only found one other time in the Bible, in Isa 11:1.

            And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit.

            The word translated rod in that Proverbs passage is not “stock” and it is not “branch.”  It is “shoot,” as in a leaf sprouting out of a main branch.  That gives you a whole new insight into the proverb.

            When a fool talks, those words are shooting forth from the main branch—his pride.  They are a product of arrogance, conceit, and self-satisfaction.  It may not be that a person who talks a lot is always a proud person, but it certainly is true that a proud person talks too much.  He is busy trying to convince everyone else that he is as good as he thinks he is.

            Now think about those vines of ours.  Once the tendrils catch hold of the trellis they are tenacious.  It is nearly impossible to get them loose without breaking a branch.  Even if you cut the plant at the bottom, the vine will hang on for several days, and if it has been close to something organic--the ground, the branch of another plant--it may very well have rooted on its own and just keep climbing.

            When your pride starts branching out, its tendrils will wind around to the point that it is nearly impossible to get it out of your system.  Maybe that is why it is one of the things God especially warns us about.  You cannot fix your problems when you cannot see them, and pride will blind you to your own faults as nothing else can.

            I want the vines on my trellis to screen me from my neighbors, but you don’t want a vine that screens you from any correction your soul desperately needs.  Be careful when you find yourself talking a lot.  It might be sprouting from pride, and once that pride catches hold of you, your soul is in grave danger.

Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogance come out of your mouth.  For Jehovah is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed, 1 Sam 2:3.        

Dene Ward