Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13 verse 23:
23 "As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."
Yesterday I had the honor of taking part in the South Plains Food Bank Harvest of Hope Luncheon.
During his speech at the luncheon, David Weaver, Executive Director of the SPFB and Second B member, told the story of being stopped at a stop light when a woman got out of the car in front of him, opened her back door, and pulled out a sack David recognized as one from the food bank. She rifled through the sack for a second and then out came an apple.
David then went on to tell the story of that apple and the orchard it came from. Twenty-five years ago, when he 65-years-old and newly retired, Howard Mercer, another Second B member, had the idea of planting an orchard for the food bank. He wanted to leave some kind of legacy. David said he talked with Howard a few years later and Howard had said that that for him was a part of the meaning of life: "To plant a tree under whose shade another generation will sit."
That was as powerful an image as I've ever heard.
I had the task of wrapping up the event with a closing word. I quoted an old aphorism which what I had heard in David's speech reminded of: "You can count the seeds in the apple; but you can never number the apples in the seed."
May we all go out today and plant some small seed somewhere; and when the seed grows up may those from another generation sit under its shade and eat from its fruit.
Missed a Lesson? Find archived Daily Lessons at ryonprice.blogspot.com.
Want to plant a seed with the SPFB orchard? Go to spfb.org/give_help and click the "Donate Now" button.
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