Home-grown Tomatoes

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n highway 274 a few miles south of Cherryville’s city limit sign stands Shady Grove Baptist Church.  Behind this church there used to be a large field, completely hidden from view, accessible only by a winding dirt road.  Unless you were aware of its existence, you’d never notice or know the field was there.  This field, however, became the scene of one of the greatest lessons my dad taught me when I was only six or seven years old.

At the time, the field belonged to one of my great uncles who farmed for a living.  Every summer my dad liked to plant a vegetable garden. He loved working the land, caring for plants, and watching things grow.  This particular summer was no exception and he asked permission to use the field and my uncle gladly consented.  My dad’s intention was to use this field for a specific purpose.  It was destined to grow only one type of vegetable instead of providing different crops.  This field had been set aside to grow tomatoes and that is exactly what my dad planted—tomato plants, row after row of them.

I remember going with him to plow, plant, stake, and care for those tomato plants.  I love tomatoes and that year we had more than our share.  Dad and I would take a van, and as he plowed, hoed, watered, and tended the plants, he taught me one of the greatest lessons a father can teach his young son.  I remember dad telling me one day, “Son, a garden is the closest place to God on this earth!”  At the time, I had no clue what he was talking about, but now I understand what he was telling me all those years ago.

In Jeremiah 33:3, the prophet records these words from God, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”  This is the lesson God would have us learn today and I began learning it over thirty years ago in the red mud of a tomato field off of highway 274 south.  Daddy was teaching me that after all the work of preparing the ground, planting, staking, watering, and weeding, he could do no more.  From that point on the job of producing tomatoes was in God’s hands.  All daddy could do was tend to the plants and do his best to care for them.  God made the garden grow and caused the plants to bear large, succulent, tomatoes.

It is exactly the same way in our walk with the Lord.  After we have studied our Bibles, prayed, and done all we can do, we have to turn the reigns over to God and trust him.  This is what Jeremiah was communicating in today’s scripture.  God is the only source for the answers we need. Only he can provide the love, the joy, the completeness, and the assurance that we need.  Too often we call out to people around us for answers.  We read every thing new under the sun and consult all the “experts” on a given topic.  But God says we are to call out to him and to him alone.

That summer, if we wanted tomatoes, all we had to do was visit that field and pull one off the vine.  They were better than any store-bought tomato because they came from daddy’s garden, grown with hard work and with love.  No other tomato from any other garden tasted the same.  Likewise, when we need answers, when we need assurance, when we need to know that someone cares for and loves us, we must go to the only source, our Heavenly Father.  We must draw our nourishment from his garden, because food from any other garden just isn’t the same and never as good.

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hen was the last time you called out to God?  When was the last time you sought his face and settled for nothing less than an answer directly from him?  He is waiting to teach us so much if we will just call on his name and wait for his answer.  When was the last time you had a home-grown tomato from daddy’s garden?  Why don’t you pick one today!