The Value of Home Grown

I literally hate to buy tomatoes at the grocery store.  At best, I prefer to buy them at those little produce stands you see by the side of the road.  Better yet, I love to grow them.  There is something so very satisfying about going out to the back yard, picking one, washing it and cutting it up for evening supper's salad. Grocery store tomatoes are not tasty or juicy and somehow they just don't seem to "be from around here".  I always look forward to April 15th.  Usually, it is a safe date to set out your plants.

Perhaps it's the loving care you give them as they grow such as the battles you fight with the cut worms, the worry you have when you leave home and remember you forgot to water them before you left and all the hastle of tieing the stalks to the stakes to make sure they can't blow over from the weight of all that lucious fruit.  And, believe it or not, I really do enjoy giving them to neighbors.  (I can never eat all that I grow and it breaks my heart to see one go to waste.  And, my wife doesn't can stuff.)

The good book teaches us that we don't need to pray for the Lord to make the job easier for us.  We are to pray that we are strengthened for the job at hand.  It's true.  Test it!  Grow a tomatoe bush this summer. 

When He Comes

The jokes and hoopla continue as we enter the eve of the latest prediction of Christ's return to us.  The story is that He will come to rapture all believers on May 21st (tomorrow).  I read headlines this morning that there will be parties going on to celebrate the fact that the guy predicting this was wrong.  (To be held on Sunday of course.)

Jesus said, "Only our Father in Heaven knows the day and hour."  I take Him at His word for this as I contemplate what His coming really means.  Prophets of the Bible related their experiences and visions in the only way they knew how at the time.  In the end, it simply means we have hope that extends into time without restrictions. 

Why would anyone have a party to celebrate the fact that Christ did not return yesterday?  I can only ascertain that they either don't know the way, or that they simply don't want Him to return.  Either way it is a sad statement that will be made and it will be a black eye once again given to Christianity.  Regardless of whether or not anyone predicts the date and time, in the end does that really matter?  There will still be skeptics, there will still be believers, and, when it does occur, those of us who are righteous will join in singing and rejoicing praises to our Lord and Saviour.  Those of us who are not righteous will bow down and confess Him as Lord of all.