What I Didn't Think I Planted

Yesterday, I spent a good bit of time harvesting our tomatoes, realizing that the next few baskets will probably be the last of the season. This is the group I harvested yesterday. I harvested them from the front of the house, right underneath our schoolroom window. The thing is, I never planted them there. We planted tomatoes and peppers in the back of the house. The huge plant in the front was not intended.


So, as I filled my plastic gladware container, I laughed and talked to the the Lord. "Lord, I didn't even intend for there to be fruit here!" He reminded me that this happens in life very often.

I was thinking of my good buddy George Bailey. (I have a strange kinship with this Capra character and the Lord lets me learn things from his fictional existence.) George was in the building and loan business because he believed that everyone deserved a good, sturdy home. He thought the business was his business, but didn't realize that by moving forward with what he believed, he was making friends and followers. His harvest wasn't in the business, but in the people.


He didn't really intend for that to happen, but when he needed it, and when he least expected it, what he sowed sustained him. George was working hard to grow a harvest in one thing, and didn't realize that by sowing seed in one harvest, he would reap a bigger one in one that he had never intended.

We just never know how we impact eternity. The small part we play, the little things we do each day are big. If just one person living by his convictions can change a town, what could happen if hundreds of people live by their convictions? What could they do? They could turn the world upside down.

"I [Paul] started preaching this life changing message, this radical turn to God, and everything it meant in everyday life--right here in Damascas, went on to Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, and from there to the whole world." Acts 26:20