Diane’s garden is producing tomatoes. Like a volcano, her garden is spewing out more tomatoes than we can handle, not a lava flow, a tomato flow. We can’t give them away fast enough. Rev. Fred Munchow was a pastor in Altamont, Illinois. I remember his advice to pastors. When you drive to church on Sunday this time of year, be sure to roll up your windows. If you don’t, parishioners will fill your car seats with tomatoes, zucchini, and all the other abundance from their garden, more than you can use.
“Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). We do need bread. It was a famine that led the children of Israel into Egypt, and after hundreds of years they were led into a land of milk and honey. Sometimes our gardens produce, our business prospers, our investments grow, but other times we are in want. In every time, the Spirit leads us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (Isaiah 55:2).
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go…to the priest…. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 26:1-4).
Yesterday Diane made a tomato pie. This was a new venture, and she was worried how it would turn out. It was great; I liked it. Still, we have more tomatoes than we can eat, and more blessings than we could have ever earned. Our pastor probably doesn’t need our tomatoes but the Lord and His Church desire devotion and our first fruits. “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine” (Proverbs 3:10).
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