Bananas and Tomatoes

Just before the frost last fall, I went out to our garden. The tomato plants were on their last legs, but there were still many green tomatoes hanging on the vines.

One by one, I picked them and then brought them inside. I knew that the next day everyone of the plants would be dead.

I looked at the green tomatoes when I got them inside. There was not a trace of color on them anywhere. Still, there are a number of ways to ripen, even the greenest of tomatoes.

I carefully placed the tomatoes in a container and then, I placed two bananas with them. Over the next couple of weeks, I replaced the bananas once, while the tomatoes ripened.

You see, for tomatoes to ripen effectively, they require ethylene gas. Tomatoes themselves release some of this, but bananas release quite a bit more. Without this gas, they will remain green and generally unfriendly to the various dishes which call for ripe tomatoes.

Bananas release plenty of ethylene gas so that as they ripen, they spur tomatoes on as well. This is something peculiar to bananas. Put three or four kiwi fruits in with the tomatoes and you'll just have a mess on your hands in a couple of weeks.

It takes a special person to help others on to spiritual maturity. As I read through the New Testament, it seems that Barnabas, the son of consolation, was just such a person.

Barnabas nurtured Paul in the beginning, accepting him and accompanying him on his early missionary journey. It was he as well, who spent time with John Mark strengthening that young disciple in his faith.

It is easy to stand back and watch others stand or fall on their own, but God has called us to do more. We must be encouragers, lifters of burdens. We must help others on to spiritual maturity, just as bananas encourage tomatoes to greater redness.

Labor Saving Devices

Humans are always trying to figure out how to make hard things easy, or at the very least, easier. Back in the late 1700s, one of the hard things for farmers in the southern United States to do, was to pick seeds out of cotton. It was so time consuming, that few farmers actually grew much cotton.

Then, a man named Eli Whitney invented a labor saving device that he called the cotton gin. Over night, cotton went from an after thought to a major cash crop in southern United States.

There have been many such devices invented over the years. Things that have made things like sawing, washing clothes and other menial household chores simpler. Yet, in spite of all these inventions, the hardest things in life remain hard.

It is just as hard as it has ever been for a doctor to tell someone that they have cancer. It is no easier for a person to say the words "I'm sorry" and truly mean it. It is just as difficult to say "I forgive you," from the heart, as it was two thousand years ago.

While we humans have developed devices to take the place of our hands, there is nothing that can take the place of the heart. No amount of denial will remove the wounds and joys experienced within the human soul.

Modern psychology, in all its wisdom, is better at uncovering, than it is at curing. All too often, after the mind's river has been dredged, the corpses lie on the shore, simply to rot in a different place.

It is only as we approach God, slowly, in our quiet times, that we can understand. Hard things have to be hard, so that in our weaknesses, we might find God's strength.

There will never be a device to experience our deepest feelings or, make it easier to achieve our soul-desires. For, it is there, in our tear-filled darkness, far from technology, that we find our own, desperate need for God.

Heartburn

It came to pass, not long ago, that I went to a Mexican Restaurant with my wife and I did order a plate of food that caused my nose to run and my face to sweat. And I enjoyed it greatly.

A little while later, I found that my food was to me as Jesus’ words were to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. For, I found that my heart began to burn within me, or rather my esophagus did, which is much the same thing.

Shortly thereafter, I went to my medicine cabinet and searched and there I found Generic Antacids. And I took them with Much Avail.

I reflected then that heartburn might grant some benefit to Mexicans, but to me, I found it quite uncomfortable and something to be avoided.

Then, I began to recall the Words of Jesus and how they held power and the words of the scribes and Pharisees did not. The people had followed Jesus for these powerful Words. And how David had prized God’s Words more than his necessary food.

There are many Christians who have sat down to a feast of Real Doctrine and got up with a bad case of zeal for Building the Kingdom. Many of them did not enjoy it much at all.

In order to quench this fire, the doctors of the world prescribed the Antacids of Things and Good Deeds and most of all, Shallow Music. They did recommend as well, that these people stay away from God’s Word and from those who proclaimed it truly. And for them, there were provided churches that look very much like churches on the outside, but the words that those churches present are not the Living Word and the zeal is Lacking.

As for me, I will continue to search for food that wakes me up and Words that stimulate my spiritual desire for the Things of God. For, though they are hard to digest, these Words bring the best results in the end.