Making a Choice 

This is the time of year when I sort through my collection of seeds and decide what to grow on my allotment. My kitchen table is covered with packets of varying ages, some empty, some years old, some that I thought I would plant but never did. This time I have had a bit of a clear-out and binned old seeds, it’s not worth the risk that they won’t grow. There have been some great successes and some dramatic failures over the last 24 years that I have had an allotment. The tomatoes were a total disaster last year due to blight, everyone on the site lost their crop! My butternut squashes were bite-sized but I had an amazing crop of lettuce, carrots, beetroot, cucumbers and soft fruit.

Now to make the choice, what to risk again, what new things to try out? I am always tempted by the wonderful looking vegetables in the seed catalogues, surely mine will be the same, what can go wrong? Well, quite a lot, I’ve often been disappointed but sometimes pleasantly surprised.

In our Oasis group, we are studying Abraham and there’s one point when Abram (he is not yet Abraham) decides that the land can’t support both his and his nephew Lot’s herds, so he gives Lot the choice. Either the land to the east, the more fertile or to the west. Genesis 13:10 -11 says "Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east." Unfortunately, this turns out badly, as Lot is caught up in disputes between a number of kings and Lot and his household were taken captive.

What does Abram do? “ When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” And “He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.” This involved a journey of over 300km each way. What a hero he was and so gracious towards his nephew.

Abram didn’t give up on his nephew and God doesn’t give up on us, no matter how we mess up. There is always another day to make the choice to say sorry and start again.

I’m not going to give up growing tomatoes in spite of last year’s blight. I have found in one of my catalogues “blight resistant tomato seeds”, so I am going to give them a try and see how they turn out, maybe they will look as good as the photos and taste delicious.

Lord thank you that you don’t give up on us and that you sent Jesus to be our saviour. Amen