...In Due Season...

      Raspberry canes poked me from most every direction. The spring sunshine making my task seem too hot for the time of year, I relished the cool breeze that occasionally tickled my hair across my face. I looked at the raspberry patch. “This is a big job,” I thought. “Maybe I could leave some for another day…”

      The task that I had set my hand to do was trimming the raspberry canes before they leafed out. Last year’s raspberry patch had a certain similarity to a jungle of canes. Beyond this, the warm weather would quickly turn the dormant plants into a patch of living green. They needed to be trimmed soon. This was going to exercise my perseverance. Almost instantly Galatians 6:9 leaped to mind. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”  

      “Hmmm...in due season we shall reap.”  Raspberries are not ripe in Montana until well into the summer. How differently than society views rewards in general! Instead of a weekly, or bi-weekly paycheck, reaping the remuneration of work, a due season in the raspberry patch comes after several months of waiting. Due season in a fruit tree orchard is several years out. Perhaps humanity needs to learn enduring patience. Human nature likes instant fulfillment and gratification, but in scripture we are called to be patient. 

      “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” James 5:7. The husbandman has long patience for the fruit of the earth, and so must those of us who undertake gardening in one of its various forms. So also must the Christian who awaits Christ’s return. God’s people have eagerly anticipated His coming for longer than you or I have been alive, but we’re still called to patience. Just as the fruits of the earth are worth waiting for months to obtain, so the precious fruits of Christian character are worth waiting for. Though it takes a lifetime to reach the harvest, due season will come, it will not tarry. “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5:8. “…in due season we shall reap…”