How can you put a price on fresh blueberries from your own garden? And yet, a local nursery specializing in native plants does just that. And it’s quite high — the Yard Boy said it was $35.00.
As he and I stood over the dead stick that is now sticking up out of the ground chiding us with its barrenness, we wondered why we would spend so much money. Worse yet, we neglected to put sulfur on these plants as they grew weaker and weaker over the past year. The leaves were showing signs of needing more acidity in the soil, but we just never got around to applying it. One is still alive and putting out blossoms, the other is beyond hope.
Admittedly, Blueberries should not cost this much, but the rabbits kept chowing down on the tender twigs of the smaller bushes we had tried to grow, and we thought this would be a good method of rabbit-proofing our potential berry crop. The larger stems of these big shrubs did prove to be less appealing to the annoying bunnies.
But one died anyway, just like the smaller blueberry bushes before them.
It is said, “Nothing is sure but death and taxes.” This may ring true for most of us, but there are many people who seem to be able to avoid taxes. That leaves one thing in this life that is certain.
“This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead” (Ecclesiastes 9:3, NASB).
If we all know death is certain, why do many of us live as if that weren’t so? None of us are getting out of here alive, unless the Lord comes first.
Dismissing our own worth in God’s sight is as foolish as my neglect of the valuable blueberry bushes. We must not allow our lives to be as unproductive as that one that died within the year. Do you know that we never had a single blueberry off of it?
Like the overpriced blueberry bushes, we were all bought with a price.
“For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:10).