The Appearance of First Fruits


Tomato plants in the garden.

Tomato plants in the garden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

His wife looked out the kitchen window.  She saw him sitting in the dirt next to the tomato plants.  His head was in his hands.  His elbows on his legs.  And a silly smile pulled his lips as if to tear them down the middle.  She smiled too, then softly walked away to pray a short prayer.

“Father in Heaven, I thank you for what you have done.  You have given my husband great joy as You blessed the work of his hand in the planting.  I went to see him out the kitchen window, and I’ve rarely seen him so happy.  I give you thanks for the single ripe fruit of his labor.  By Jesus name I pray; from whom we are like that fruit to You.  Amen.”

How absolutely lovely is the soul lit when we witness the bounty of the Lord appear from the labor He has sent us to accomplish.  How we desired to see it!  And nothing on earth can match the beauty it brings to the heart.  It is like the joy a mother has when seeing her child for the first time after the pain of labor.  Pure, undefiled, over-arching joy, the source of which is the Love of God!

Blessings to the Blessed Lord of Life for such moments in our time here.  Amen!

The Weight of God


Heavy hearts, heavy clouds

Heavy hearts, heavy clouds (Photo credit: dhammza)

A heavy heart is not always a bad thing.  Knowing the Lord can cause a man to regret time spent idle when he should have been growing in understanding of the things of God.

Because of this heaviness, I find myself desiring to grow.  A desire rages inside that heavy heart like the center of a seed.  The shell of a seed is hard because it has to be.  It is protecting what is inside it.  Ain’t that why we call it a shell?  Perhaps that heaviness is a shell under attack from the soil.  It begins to rot so that the interior can burst forth.

Regardless, a heavy heart is not always a bad thing.