I grew potatoes in pots on our balcony in Colorado. It was a pretty good harvest despite the ups and downs of temps on the 3rd floor. Encouraged by that experiment, my husband and I thought we would try it out here!
We usually have organic potatoes in our pantry, so I took a few Russets and a few Golds, allowed them to sprout, and planted them in three pots. Two to three potatoes in a pot. One pot of Russets, two pots of Golds.
First Harvest
To be fair, this was not the first potato harvest of the season. Pot number one had leaves that yellowed in a very short amount of time, so we dumped it and got what harvest we could. Admittedly, I was surprised to see anything at all. The few potatoes were as big as the nail on my big thumb and landed in a batch of French fries that were cooked that night. Yum!
Second Harvest
This second harvest feels like it should have been the first real one:
Third Harvest
And this is the third batch of potatoes in a pot. So far it is surviving the bunny and the bugs, and I’m looking forward to the yield!
Life is Worship!
What do potatoes have to do with life as worship? I’m so glad you asked! I once watched a movie called Faith Like Potatoes about a farmer who planted potatoes during a drought, against all natural advice. That wasn’t even his go-to crop. He usually grew corn and raised cattle. Everyone said he was crazy, but he had heard from his Heavenly Daddy that they would have a bumper crop at harvest time.
Some of the members of the community wanted to test-dig here and there to see if anything was growing (there were no leaves visible, by the way). He would not allow it. Either they had faith, or they didn’t! Because according to Hebrews 11:1, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (KJV)
He used his faith like a check drawn on the bank. The substance of the thing hoped for. A check is the substance, representative of the money that’s in the bank. You believe that when you submit it for redemption, you’ll have cash in hand or a transfer to your account. In this instance, his “substance” or his “work” was the act of not digging up the potatoes prematurely (faith without works is dead, James 2:17). The belief was that when he dug up the ground at harvest time, the potatoes would be there.
Walking Forward in Faith
Hopefully, we don’t experience things as dramatic as that, but we do need to exercise faith for big-picture things (like a job search, or a new home), and for the minutiae of daily living (will that charge go through for the aspirin at Walgreens?). Nothing is guaranteed, and everything is a faith walk. How we choose to manage that faith walk is a reflection of our worship.
I know, there are special potato grow bags now so we can check on their progress, that’s a relatively new thing. It kind of feels like cheating. But there are some things we’ve become so comfortable with, we don’t even think about them anymore. We know the charge will go through. We’ve done it enough times. In the same way, there are certain things for which we no longer need to “exercise faith.” God has proven himself in those areas time and again. We don’t take it for granted, instead, we live with hearts full of gratitude for the blessing of his goodness.
God is always at work for us. He is always for our good. (Jeremiah 29:11) We don’t get to pull up the flap and check what he’s doing though, like on the potato grow bag. Sometimes we can see his hand at work, and other times we just have to trust that he is working behind the scenes. Like trusting that potatoes are actually growing in the ground, where we can’t see them.
And, as we exercise faith in the new areas, we remember the previous times and areas where he’s proven himself, for which we are grateful. He has come through over and over, and he will do it again.
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