Lessons from a Garden 18

Lesson 18: Beware of Fruit Thieves

When tomatoes began appearing on the tomato plants and our garden was getting green my wife and I thought it would be nice to encourage birds to come around. We bought a bird feeder and a bag of birdseed and placed this near the garden. As we usually ate breakfast on our back deck we imagined colourful songbirds chirping around us. Well things did not turn out quite like that. Mostly we attracted crows, starlings, and blackbirds who drove the smaller birds away. And then came the granddaddy of groundhogs. He ate the birdseed that fell on the ground and then started on our tomatoes, stealing the fruit before we could harvest it. We took down the bird feeder. After a few mornings of getting sprayed with the water hose the groundhog eventually left.

In the old days the veteran Christians would sometimes talk about the devil stealing their blessing. By that they meant  that after they had had a great blessing, perhaps at a revival meeting, a few days later things would go wrong and they would get upset and discouraged. In your Christian life, don’t let anyone or anything steal your blessing. Don’t let the devil rob you of your joy. Don’t let anything spoil the fruit that the Spirit is cultivating in your life.

James 4:7

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.