All About Beans!

The other day, I stood in the window and watched Glenda pick green beans out of her garden.  She doesn't have a real big garden.  It is just enough to get her fingers dirty and for her to say she worked in the garden.  But this year something has changed in her garden.  She has one tiny, little row of green beans.  The difference is that this year they are producing like crazy.  We have had fresh green beans now for a couple of weeks.  Almost to the point that she came close to complaining about how many green beans there were the other day!

In years past, she would plant the same amount of green beans and the rabbits would eat them off--or the heat would stunt their growth--or the drought would kill them before they could produce.  This year, the rabbits are around but not getting into her garden.  We have had plenty of rain and the heat hasn't been too bad until the last week!  The results are a great crop of green beans.

What I am writing about isn't really about green beans at all!  It is the persistence that she has kept in her heart to plant green beans!  Year after year, she has planted green beans, never knowing if she is going to reap a good harvest or a lousy harvest.  She has been persistent in what she is doing and she is reaping the benefits this year.

But I am not really writing about persistence in planting green beans either! What I see is the heart ache that is experienced year after year in planting the seeds of the Word of God in the lives of people around us.  I have now just completed my 25th year of ministry and if there is one theme that has rung true in every year of ministry, it is "Someone who is dear and close to you will turn their back on you and walk away at sometime!"  Often times it is the ones who are closest to you.  Now I am not talking about those who are feeling called by God to go work in another ministry some where.  I am talking about those who not only turn their backs on me, but they turn their backs on God and on the body of Christ!  It may seem like a bit of downer, but I have gone through each year of ministry wondering who it will be this year!

The effort that goes into these people sometimes is much and sometimes is little.  Either way, it still hurts when they turn away and quit the body of Christ all together.    This summer, I am watching several families who have been faithful and true to the church but all of a sudden something has happened and they are gone.  For many of them there is no answer.  When I call them they say, "Oh Pastor, you don't have to worry about us.  We will be back!"  But they never come back.  I don't know if the heat got them, the lack of rain got them or a rabbit bit them off at the ground.  They are just gone!

But the focus can't be on the ones who say one thing and do something totally different.  The focus should be on the years when the vines are producing to the max.  The Word of God is planted each year at New Life Bible Church.  There is a harvest each year, be it little or be it much.  There are lives being changed for the good because of the persistence of people like Glenda who keep on planting and weeding and watering and picking to receive whatever the good Lord provides for us.

Satan is turning up the heat and in these last days before the return of Jesus Christ, the Bible says many will turn away from the faith and hate and betray each other.  Are you finding all sorts of little things about the body of Christ, your pastors, even God that is starting to offend you?  Don't let it happen!  Take control and stay true to the salvation that Jesus provided for you at the cross!  Think about it!