There’s a tropical storm coming for Florida. It’s a few days before hurricane season, but here it comes anyways. On our to-do list before all the heavy rain comes was to pick all the ripe blueberries off our bushes. 10-12 bushes out in our backyard that Adam had planted over the years. I’ve always enjoyed going out, fighting off the mosquitoes and getting a small bowl of blueberries to eat that afternoon with the kids. I took a big bowl out this time though since I was going to check all the plants in the garden to harvest anything before the storm. I picked some cherry tomatoes and a couple stray green beans. I found a handful of blackberries. Then I made my way to the blueberry bushes.
I started picking. It was barely drizzling rain. Then I kept picking. Wow. I thought to myself that the bushes were way more loaded than I thought. The rain picked up a little. The breeze was getting a little more than a light breeze. But what a refreshing, steady rain. I kept picking. Just when I thought I had finished picking the blue ones off one bush, I’d see an area I missed and started picking those. Sometimes I would pick them off one by one, and other times I would put the bowl underneath a bunch and just move my fingers around until the whole clump of ripe ones fell into the bowl. Suddenly a wave of gratitude flowed through me. I thought of Adam planting the tiny stick plants 8 years ago as we prayed for our land to be fruitful. I thought of all the years I would pick a few blueberries or handfuls and be grateful. And then I looked around. Blueberries. Lots of them. And here I was picking them in the rain and I didn’t even care because I know how long it took for these to produce to the magnitude. Who cares about the rain. If nothing else, I wouldn’t have to wash them when I brought them in.
Then it hit me. I thought of the tribulation that’s coming. And I thought of the End Time harvest. And I thought about the joy that filled my soul. Years of toil. Years of plowing. And then a harvest. In a number more than normal. People. Souls. And rain? Tribulation? Trouble? When you’re harvesting multitudes of the very thing you’ve been praying for and wanting for years, that tribulation can’t touch the amount of joy you feel at the magnitude of the harvest.
I looked at my bowl. My big bowl. With so many blueberries. Such expectation filled my soul. The harvest is coming. And even the rain won’t stop the harvesters. It will wash us all and we will feel the pleasure of the Lord as heaven rejoices at the harvest of souls.
Bring it on.
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