The Tall and Short of It

I’m a “Dogramma” again this week! In case you haven’t read the last post I did on this, a dogramma (my term) is a lady who takes care of someone else’s dog while the owners are traveling and then gives it back when they return.

Since the dog needs to be taken out, I have visited my backyard more often this week. As I looked around, I made an interesting observation about the okra plants. It appears that each time a flower comes up and turns into okra, the plant shoots up a little higher and starts the next okra production cycle a notch higher. By the end of the season the plants can be quite tall.

I was noticing how one plant seemed to have a thick main trunk all the way up, with the notches from the picked okra and a flower and bud of new okra. But as I looked down the row of our plants, I saw quite a variance in size – both with the height and the thickness of the trunk or main stem, as it were.

What made the difference between the largest, sturdiest and most okra producing plant and the short, scrawny, spindly little plant that hardly produced at all? Why was the little one struggling so to even exist, never mind produce? Weren’t they all in the same soil, with the same light and water conditions?

Apparently there was something missing in the mix of the little one. Maybe it got more shade and not enough water in the position slightly back toward the bushes than the other ones. They were all planted at the same time, so maybe this one had roots or stones or something else in the way underground we couldn’t see that was causing a problem.

I had to think immediately about the human side of things. How often have you seen someone who apparently had it all – money, brains, talent, and opportunities - but they never did anything with their life? On the other hand, how often have you seen people who rose to success despite tremendous obstacles?

Success, using your talents and abilities, and making a difference are all things we will be held accountable for. Why live your life in frustration like the little okra, perhaps under a shadow, or dealing with deeper unseen issues at the heart of things?

If you’re not thriving like the large sturdy producing okra plant, maybe it’s time to take a look at the underlying causes. You have as much potential to be amazing and live up to your God-given potential as anyone else. We are all different so we show our productivity in various ways. But the bottom line is, find out what is really going on that’s keep you from living your best life!

God is at work in you, to will and to work for his good pleasure. You are his workmanship. He will continue his work in you. These are promises in the Bible. However, as the Master Gardener, he can only give us, as his plants, everything we need to grow and produce well. But it’s up to us to let it all work well in our lives. If we are not producing, he will have to cut off a few branches, trim us back, or transplant us into a different area with more fertilizer and sun. Thank about the implications of that for a minute…

The process might be painful, but in the hands of a loving God (the Gardener who knows what he’s doing), we will eventually produce an abundance of good things. If not, we will wither up and die and then be thrown in the fire! Read John 15:1-17 about how to bear fruit that lasts.