Jezebel, Obadiah, and The Tomato

Jezebel, Obadiah, and The Tomato                                   September 11, 2009
This is a veggie tale, I guess.........                                    (From My Archives)

This summer Jon planted our tomato plants on the high end of our deck. The plants grew over six feet, reaching for the sun, climbing above the deck rail, over the top, through the rail, and onto the deck floor.

One of these plants grew through the rail. However, a small sprout grew back through the rail and bloomed on the outside of the rail. As this little tomato began to grow, it became quite cramped for space..........

As I sat on my deck swing, I watched it day by day. The grandkids soon noticed it and were very intrigued by it. Some of the family wondered why I didn't just pull it off. It was becoming quite misshapen and perhaps even ugly to the eye.

"No," I responded, "let's just let it grow."

As I read through God's Word, so many times I would stare at this ugly little tomato with a growing respect. Taking life from the soil, sunshine, and rain..........it never considered it's circumstances insurmountable. Ignoring all the other tomatoes around it who certainly had more favorable conditions, my little tomato just grew and grew and grew. Under so much pressure it eventually became very scarred, but yet, redder and redder, bigger and bigger.........
Yesterday morning in my Bible reading, I came across I Kings 18. The rule of wicked King Ahab and his infamously cruel wife, Jezebel............... The Word tells us that King Ahab was more wicked than all his predecessors. Elijah had been in hiding for 3 years by now. But within the palace, the den of iniquity, we find these words........

" Now the famine was severe in Samaria, and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of his palace. (Obadiah was a devout believer in the LORD. While Jezebel was killing off the LORD'S prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)"

In charge of the palace? A nest of evil........ A DEVOUT believer in the Lord? Whew! The image of my "squeezed tomato" immediately popped into my mind! Talk about unsavory circumstances! As I thought of Obadiah, I found myself wondering if in today's world.... will I be able to stand! Will the building pressures and animosity against Christians today cause me to bend or break? One thing for sure, they will test our metal..........

But I took courage from this story of a faithful servant who was not only devout, but actively doing what his hands found to do. What courage it must have taken to defy the wicked queen and save, hide, and sustain 100 prophets! (Sort of a role model for the Ten Booms, huh?)

In Oswald Chamber's, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, we find these words:

Ministering as opportunity surrounds us does not mean selecting our surroundings, it means being very selectly God's in any haphazard surroundings which He engineers for us. The characteristics we manifest in our immediate surroundings are indications of what we will be like in other surroundings.

We imagine we would be all right if a big crisis arose; but the big crisis will only reveal the stuff we are made of, it will not put anything into us.

So............my tomato grew all summer and eventually reached full maturity. It had used all the space possible between the two pickets and out beyond.

Finally, the day came........... I gently worked the misshapen tomato from between the rails and carried it appreciatively into the house. I washed it and cut away the scarring. I prepared my bread as only a Southern gal can do........lots of Duke mayo! I sliced the luscious tomato into thick slices, placed it generously across the bread, loaded it with salt and pepper and then..........

Ah..........one of summer's greatest delights! A homegrown tomato sandwich! Without exaggerating, it was the best tomato I had all summer!

Like my tomato, Obediah didn't allow the pressures around him to defeat him. He could have said, "What can ONE man do? This is an impossible situation! I'd better just lie low and wait it out and hope for the best......."

But as Oswald Chambers said, Lord, help me to use the things I have in my hand today........this moment, this opportunity......... Let me be faithful today in seeking every way I can serve you.

When the squeeze is on, help me to persevere, to reach for the Word, to pray for an open door....

May the fruit of my life mature and reproduce for Your Kingdom!
In His Harvest, Linda