Early mornings in August are just the right time to sit outside on the back porch and sip some coffee, while enjoying the happy songs of the birds. But, alas, the gardener who wanted so many tomatoes and okra plants is now destined to spend that quiet, cooler hour gathering the fruits of her labors.
When I drove out to the community garden where I rented a couple of sunny plots, I was not surprised to see the gate was closed. The faded banner that used to have the garden’s name sagged forlornly on one side.
Not many of us really wanted to spend a lot of time out there in the 90-degree heat. I may have inherited the extreme frugality of my parents and grandfather, who lived through the Great Depression and had told stories of not having enough. Making the most of my $30 rental fee is what I feel I need to do, never mind the heat or squash bugs or that coffee still waiting at home. I’m not giving up! There are beefsteak tomatoes and cucumbers in there!
Getting out of the car to open the gate with the drooping banner, it suddenly struck me that the once-colorful large rag resembled a sagging white flag. Had many gardeners surrendered their plants to the heat, drought, and bugs? Are we announcing to the community that we are giving up?
I wonder how many other things we have simply given up on? Young mothers often feel like they are beating their heads against the wall, trying to teach basic life skills to children my daughter refers to as “hooligans” (however lovable and adorable HER hooligans are!) Oh, how many times I wanted to fly the white flag of surrender during those early days of potty training and the general teaching of manners!
What about our efforts to seek and save the lost? Sure, we all have enough on our plates, and Christianity in general is getting some very negative press these days, fairly or not. But the Great Commission was given at an epoch that soon saw Christians being used as torches. We can’t be so discouraged by the threat of social rejection.
Some have even given up on the church in general. During the time we were encouraged to quarantine to stop the spread of Covid, we got out of the habit of meeting one another in person to exhort and encourage one another. Some even quit bothering to attend “online.” Some are just dispirited from the lack of Christian fellowship, that they have thrown up the white flag of surrender, and simply given up on God. He hasn’t given up on us!
“… Let’s consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24, 25).
If our tiny family cannot consume the bounty that I go out and make myself harvest every two days, we will bring them to the church building and put them on the table in the foyer, where Herb and Jessica and Dorea have been providing others with fresh vegetables already. Why give up when we can bless others?
Some gardeners may come back in cooler weather when their cucumbers are hard and yellow, the tomatoes are rotten, and the rabbits have eaten their squashes. They won’t have a harvest, because vegetables don’t wait. Neither does God, at least not forever.