Return On Investment?

Well, we are on our way. From Lincoln, Nebraska to Denver and now in San Francisco. Next will be Sydney and finally on to Port Moresby and Goroka in Papua New Guinea. A very long trip...

Some of our final instructions to our son Nic as we left the homestead and headed for the airport had to do with the garden. We have many vegetables and fruit on the vine, and we have watched them grow with the joy that comes from seeing something we did bearing fruit. It has been a bit difficult to know that we would be away when many of the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, watermelon and cantaloupe would be ready to be picked... to be harvested. We just hope that Nic will be aware of when the best time to harvest the various items will be. It is his first time to be involved in a garden, you know.

Many times in the spiritual world we are also called away from "our work" before the fruit is fully ready to be harvested and we need to trust others to complete the task. This can be very difficult, especially if we have taken ownership of our little spiritual garden.

It's good to be reminded that it is God's garden and we are His workers, not the owners of the plot. The Apostle Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 3: "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe-as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."

This is a very hard lesson to learn for many of us, and when God moves us out of one place and into another we can tend to resist and argue with Him. The reality is that when we are trying to stay in the place God wants us to leave, we are no longer doing our "ministry" for Him, but for ourselves.

Let someone else harvest the fruit of your hard work? Why not? It may be time to move on and plant another garden.