My brother had tomato plants, but where we lived there was so much wildlife it was hard to get anything out of our gardening efforts. It was decided to place the potted tomato plants on the patio, but that didn’t guarantee the plants would be safe.
There were some raccoons that would come on the patio at times; I still remember the evening I was baking cookies with the kitchen door to the patio open for fresh air and turned in time to see a raccoon looking in wiggling his (or her-I don’t know) nose at the aroma. And if the raccoon would come up there with the hope of eating cookies it isn’t hard to think that it would also come on the patio to eat the tomatoes and it did, way too soon.
One day my brother went out to see the tomatoes plants and noticed that a green tomato was left on the patio. But that wasn’t all that was left behind, there was a tooth in it. Apparently the poor raccoon found out the hard way that it is best to wait on some things and lost his (or her) tooth along with its appetite with that poor dining experience. We would do well to learn from this raccoon as well. The Bible says, “Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart be strong. Yes, wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14. Sometimes we rush ahead of God trying to make things work out the way we think it should instead of trusting in God.
In the story of Jacob and Esau, instead of trusting God to bless the younger son as God said He would Jacob and his mother took it in their own hands to try to force the right thing to happen with wrong unbiblical methods and it tore the family apart (Genesis 27). The same thing happened in the life of Abraham and Sarah. Instead of waiting on God to bless them with a son they ran ahead and tried to get a son by their own human means by deviating from God’s will, and ended up with more problems than solutions (Genesis 21).
Rushing ahead of God didn’t end well for the people in the Bible and it won’t for us. Don’t get you tooth stuck in the green tomatoes of life by breaking the rules, trying to get ahead, and refusing to trust that God has the best plan for you. God knows what is best, so don’t do things that you may regret for the rest of your life out of impatience.
Picture originally found here
