Tomato Plants
“Where in the world are we going to get bamboo?” I asked doubtfully when my friend announced that we were going to cut down large bamboo stalks In order to build support systems for the tomato plants in his garden.
“You’ll see,” he said with a characteristic smirk that always means we’re up for an adventure.
He led us right to a nearby local park. If you follow the creek that runs through it, you end up a little bit off the beaten path where, lo and behold, thick bamboo grows strong and tall. Pretty sure cutting down bamboo in a city park is unlawful, but it was for a worthy cause.
Back at the garden, we took three bamboo sticks, each cut to six feet, and tied them together at the top. The result was a teepee-like bamboo structure that is rooted into the ground around the tomato plants. In this way, the tomato plants can grow up under them, and the sturdy bamboo provides support for their branches.
The tomato plants were already heavy with tomatoes, bending and bowing with the weight. Interestingly enough, a tomato plant without the proper support will not produce good tomatoes. The weight of the tomatoes will either break the branches or bend them to the extreme that the tomatoes end up in the dirt, where they will rot and mold.
As we propped one up a tomato plant onto the bamboo support and loosely tied up the sagging branches, I commented, “Funny. You would think God would just make the tomato branches strong enough to bear the weight of their fruit.”
He responded quickly and thoughtfully. “I think he does that on purpose, actually,” he said, “so that we will have to learn to care for the plants that provide food for us.”
His words provoked me into a deeper way of thinking and a different perspective. Its amazing what you can learn about God and about life from tending to a garden. Perhaps that’s why God placed Adam and Eve in a garden. What did God talk to them about as he walked with them in the garden in the cool of the day?
Perhaps that is also why Jesus calls God the Gardener in John 15. I still have so much to learn from my Gardener God.
But one thing I have learned: we are not created to bear the weight alone. We, like tomato plants, have weak branches that need support in order to properly bear fruit. We need something (or someone) sturdy to lean our branches against, to direct our growth upward and outward. Maybe that three-legged support represents the trinity; maybe it also represents the church and Christian community and the Word of God. I know it’s all those things because God has planted me in a garden next to many other people who are also bearing fruit and resting their branches on God. And when we are all leaning on him and growing close to one another, our branches all start to support and shade one another as we abide in Christ and bear good fruit for him.
“You’ll see,” he said with a characteristic smirk that always means we’re up for an adventure.
He led us right to a nearby local park. If you follow the creek that runs through it, you end up a little bit off the beaten path where, lo and behold, thick bamboo grows strong and tall. Pretty sure cutting down bamboo in a city park is unlawful, but it was for a worthy cause.
Back at the garden, we took three bamboo sticks, each cut to six feet, and tied them together at the top. The result was a teepee-like bamboo structure that is rooted into the ground around the tomato plants. In this way, the tomato plants can grow up under them, and the sturdy bamboo provides support for their branches.
The tomato plants were already heavy with tomatoes, bending and bowing with the weight. Interestingly enough, a tomato plant without the proper support will not produce good tomatoes. The weight of the tomatoes will either break the branches or bend them to the extreme that the tomatoes end up in the dirt, where they will rot and mold.
As we propped one up a tomato plant onto the bamboo support and loosely tied up the sagging branches, I commented, “Funny. You would think God would just make the tomato branches strong enough to bear the weight of their fruit.”
He responded quickly and thoughtfully. “I think he does that on purpose, actually,” he said, “so that we will have to learn to care for the plants that provide food for us.”
His words provoked me into a deeper way of thinking and a different perspective. Its amazing what you can learn about God and about life from tending to a garden. Perhaps that’s why God placed Adam and Eve in a garden. What did God talk to them about as he walked with them in the garden in the cool of the day?
Perhaps that is also why Jesus calls God the Gardener in John 15. I still have so much to learn from my Gardener God.
But one thing I have learned: we are not created to bear the weight alone. We, like tomato plants, have weak branches that need support in order to properly bear fruit. We need something (or someone) sturdy to lean our branches against, to direct our growth upward and outward. Maybe that three-legged support represents the trinity; maybe it also represents the church and Christian community and the Word of God. I know it’s all those things because God has planted me in a garden next to many other people who are also bearing fruit and resting their branches on God. And when we are all leaning on him and growing close to one another, our branches all start to support and shade one another as we abide in Christ and bear good fruit for him.
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