Lessons From The Pumpkin Patch

Lessons from the pumpkin patch…

Late this spring, I decided to plant a pumpkin patch in a large, unused area of our yard. After planting the seeds, I shared some of the insight the Spirit brought to mind in a post I made on 4/19/22. Yesterday, as I began to clean up a summer’s worth of pumpkin patch growth and harvest what was produced, the Spirit once again began to minister to me “lessons from the pumpkin patch”….

1. “Everything works against fruit production.” From the moment the seed is in the ground, it will have to face challenge after challenge to grow and bear fruit. The weather, pests and pestilence, and even the ground itself, will constantly work against the health and productivity of the plant. The plant must overcome each obstacle for it to continue to thrive and bear fruit. (Matt 13:3-8,18-30)(Rev 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21)

2. “No two pumpkins look alike.” As I walked through my pumpkin patch looking for pumpkins, most of the fruit was hidden in the overgrowth. But each time I found a little treasure-in-the-grass, it looked different than the one I found before. Each one was a unique shape and shade of orange or white. Each one varied in size. No two pumpkins looked alike, but they were all indeed pumpkins. (1 Cor 12:4-20)

3. “The fruit must be harvested within a specific window of time.” Since I’ve never grown pumpkins before, I waited too long to harvest them and some of them were rotten. But if I had harvested them too soon, they would have been unripe and useless. Indeed, the fruit must be harvested because it wasn’t meant to be on the plant forever (ie: exterior structures; whereas Christ is our eternal interior structure), but it can only be done within a specific window of time— too soon and the fruit is immature and bitter, or too late and the fruit is diseased and rotten. Either way, the farmer has no crop, no return, no reward for all that work. (Rev 14:14-18; 18:2-5)

For those who have ears to hear, let them hear.