The Best Place to Pray for Potatoes

I heard a story of an aged father who loved to garden and his son who was in prison. Of course, the phone calls are recorded in prison. Dad, “I don’t think I’ll do a garden this year. I just don’t have the strength to dig it. Of course, with you being inside and not able to help I will just let it be.” The son said to his dad, “I wish I was with you, but whatever you do, don’t dig in the garden this year.” “Why?” “Well, that’s where I buried the money they’ve been looking for.” The next morning, FBI agents descended on the property and began digging in the garden. They tilled every square foot. After hours of digging, they found nothing and left. The old dad talked on the phone to the son the next day, “Well son, the FBI dug up my garden and now the ground is as soft as it’s ever been.” The son replied, “Well dad, that’s the best I could do under the circumstances.” Some people are willing to make the best of their circumstances while others are not. Opportunities are found if they are looked for. A book I have given out many times over the past twenty years is called “Acres of Diamonds.” It tells of a poor man that had a small farm and he never could seem to get ahead. He would look at his neighbor’s place seeing their success and think I can’t do that on my worthless piece of ground. If I had a better parcel I could succeed. He would hear and read about men making fortunes in far away places and dream of great wealth for himself. One day he sold his place and took his money to search for his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He died in a distant land, a pauper. However, the man that bought the land was walking it. In a stream on the property, he saw something sparkling in the water. It was a diamond. As he looked more closely there were sparkling spots everywhere. This spot of land became a diamond mine rendering the new owner more money than he could spend. The original owner was “void of understanding.”  The application of today’s passage can be made for the garden of our souls or can even be made for literally working and producing for our family. Providing for our family is biblical. Paul told young Timothy that if a man doesn’t provide for his family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel, an unbeliever.

The passage in Proverbs 24:30-34 has long been a favorite of mine. It has been my belief from my childhood that people ought to work. Paul said a man that won’t work shouldn’t eat. Laziness has no place of honor in the Bible. Let me give you three thoughts in today’s blog.

  1. Expectation. If you look at the passage it begins with Solomon walking by a field and a vineyard. Being reared in southeast Georgia in my earliest years and coming “home” for the many years after, I saw fields planted with many different crops. These beautiful crops would bring a smile to me knowing that my Papa and later my Uncle Wallace had worked to make this happen. Hearing them talk in the wintertime about what they planned to grow caused me to expect something special in the Springtime and early Summer. Solomon as he’s taking a stroll is expecting much more than he sees. In the Christian’s life there is an expectation placed on him or her by the Lord. We are expected to live and grow as believers. To live and grow takes effort. There must be a commitment to work and do the hard, necessary things to get the result we say we want. One of the great problems we all face is follow through. We start well, but then we get sidetracked. I think the owner of the field and vineyard at one time had visions of grandeur for his place, but he had a big problem. He was lazy. That’s a huge problem.
  2. Realization. At one point in the past the field had been worked and the wall had been built. We aren’t told if they were built by the current owner or someone earlier, but work had been done in the past. Now, however, all that work was only a forgotten memory, and nothing was being done. The longer the field and vineyard were neglected the worse the condition became. Our passage tells us in 24:31 that thorns had taken over and the barrier to keep out enemies and pests was broken down. The stone wall had holes and breaches offering no protection. Thorns don’t cover a field overnight; it takes time, and stone walls don’t deteriorate quickly. How did this happen? The man was lazy. These plots were owned by a man that was a sluggard. He was to use the words of our passage a “slothful” man and “void of understanding.” He was lazy and well, not very wise.
  3. Observation. Solomon considers what he has been looking at. He thinks about it and then things begin to formulate in his mind. This is what has happened, and this is what I have learned. “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall poverty come as one that travelleth: and thy want as an armed man.” If you make decisions like a sluggard you will end up with little and in want. It is like a person that travels down a certain road called Sluggard Avenue. You end up at the destination at the end of that road, Poverty Point. If you are lazy, you end up with the same result as a robber. “I’ll take fast money” is the thinking of the armed man only to find that fast money is fast gone. There is no shortcut to success; it is hard work.

Many years ago, there was an old preacher called Uncle Buddy Robinson. By the world’s standards he wasn’t educated, but he had the power of God in his life, and he certainly had the wisdom from reading the Bible and believing it. One day he was asked about praying and asking God to meet needs. He made this statement, which when I read it I never forgot it. “The best place to pray for potatoes is at the end of a hoe handle.” If you want your spiritual life to thrive, work at it. Laziness doesn’t cut it if great strides are to be made.