Four years ago, when we put in our first garden box, my wife and I decided to plant potatoes. They did okay, and we had a moderate potato harvest at the end of the season. They took up a lot of space in our small garden bed, however, and it didn’t seem that the modest outcome was worth the garden space when there were other things we could plant instead. And so it was that we didn’t plant potatoes for the next two years.

Last year, we built a new garden box and planted asparagus, melon and corn. When the rabbits got the melon, however, we decided to once again try potatoes in that new garden box. And this year we had a super potato harvest growing in the roots of the corn.

As summers always do, this beautiful one we were having came to a close. It was time to clean out the garden for the season, and my wife set to work. Imagine our astonishment when she pulled up the pepper plants from the first garden box, the one where we had planted potatoes four years earlier, to find … potatoes! And not one, either, but a whole basketful! Almost as many as the original crop of potatoes from four years earlier!

There is only one plausible explanation. We must have left a potato in the ground four years ago, and it grew the next year and produced a couple more. When we didn’t know they were there and didn’t harvest them, one of them sprouted the next year and so on, until now, four years later, we had a basketful of potatoes from a crop planted four years earlier!

The most interesting part is that we don’t recall ever seeing a potato plant mixed in with the peppers…

In addition to the potatoes, we have been surprised this year to find that tiny volunteer basil leaves came up in the pot that had held basil last year. And one of the pots that we planted with spring annuals had a whole bunch of voluntary coleus plants, where we hadn’t planted coleus for two years. And then there was the voluntary dill and after that new garden box was all cleaned out for the year, up shot a melon plant!

Is God trying to teach us a lesson, or what?

You see, after praying about certain things for a number of years, it was becoming pretty tempting to start believing they would never happen. That lost family member, who we had witnessed to faithfully for years, would never be saved. Certain areas of this ministry would never grow in the direction we had been praying for years that it would grow. My cognition would never be healed despite all of our prayers!

But wait. When we witnessed to lost family members, we did so because we felt God directing us to do it. We were praying in the directions we were praying for the ministry because God had put it on our hearts to do so. We were praying for my healing because God had promised to heal my cognition, and God keeps ALL His promises!

Yes, this year was the year of a lot of voluntary plants; and especially that basketful of potatoes teaches us a very poignant lesson: Our efforts don’t always produce immediate results! Nonetheless, just like we had a harvest of potatoes from a place where we hadn’t planted potatoes for four years, we can be sure that as long as we continue to pray as God directs us to pray, our efforts will one day produce fruit! Because we respond to God’s prodding to pray for family members, those family members WILL be saved! It might not be right now, or tomorrow, or even next year! But in the same way we had potatoes four years later, those family members WILL come to the Lord! Because we follow God’s lead in praying for the ministry, those prayers WILL be answered! And because God promised and we hold on to that promise, my cognitive concerns WILL be healed!

Remember the parable of the sower? Jesus didn’t say, a farmer went out to prepare for a harvest. Rather, He said: “A farmer went out to sow his seed.” (Matthew 13:3b NIV). As a matter of fact, the farmer wasn’t even all that careful about where his seed fell; yet we aren’t told the sower went out and swept up the seed from the path, or that he put more dirt around on the seed that fell on the rocky soil. It simply says, “A farmer went out to sow his seed.” What we need to remember is that our mandate is not to get people saved, or healed, or anything else. Our mandate is to scatter the seed: To witness, to pray, to do whatever God puts on our hearts. After that, we don’t have a mandate, for God is in charge of the harvest, not us! And He promises that, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (Eccl. 3:11a NIV). Notice it doesn’t say in our time! But in its time!

Is there something you’ve been praying about for such a long time that you are beginning to believe those prayers will never be answered? Remember our basketful of potatoes and take heart! Your efforts WILL bear fruit, in God’s time!

Fresh-cut French fries, anyone? My wife makes a mean poutine!

Inspired by Rob Chaffart
Director, Answers2Prayer Ministries