Lessons from the Blackberry Patch

Summertime’s in full swing and it’s been busy around here. There has been much going on, cherries have ripened and are done, pies baked and are now a distant memory, and zucchini will soon be gone so we enjoy the bread while we have it. Blackberries are ripe, juicy and sweet so much time is spent in the blackberry patch. In case you didn’t know it, the blackberry patch is one of my favorite places on earth. For me, it is so peaceful and quiet, something I don’t have the opportunity to enjoy on a regular basis so I take full advantage during blackberry season! But that isn’t my favorite thing. My very favorite thing is the “treasure” of finding a bunch of great big berries hidden behind a leaf. Not visible from the normal viewpoint, only seen when you get down on your knees and look up.

I was picking berries with a woman who stopped by the other day and she was on one side of the row with me on the other. We talked as we picked and I noticed her voice getting farther away when she said, “You must have much more berries on that side.” I replied, “No, I’m just slow. I really like it out here. You know there are berries under the leaves too.”

It’s that way with God’s Word too. You can look at a passage over and over and all of a sudden a great big juicy truth is sitting there waiting to be plucked. Today I was reading in Matthew 11 and all of a sudden I realized that God knows all things actual and all things possible. Possible. He even knows what we would do IF we were put into a situation. That had never occurred to me, but in Matthew 11 when Jesus said to the people who had rejected Him that if He had performed the miracles that He’d done there in Sodom that they would have repented and Sodom would still be standing today. He knew how the people of Sodom would have responded IF they had seen the miracles because HE IS GOD. He knows all things possible. This was an amazing revelation to me and there it was hidden there among the passage in Matthew 11:20-23. So next time I have a prayer that is met with a resounding silence I won’t question why God has not met what I considered a need. I will rest and trust in the wisdom of God knowing that He holds not only my actual future in His hands but also every possible opportunity as well.