We live in town so our land is not nearly as large as those who live out in the country; however, we do have a fairly decent lot size. The neighborhood kids tend to gather in our yard for a game of capture the flag, football, soccer or whatever they dream up.
Last year we did our pumpkin carving outside and some of our neighbors came to join in the fun. We had a grand time! As the pumpkins began to rot we threw them in our big leaf burning pile. We had diminished the pile down before tossing the pumpkin remains in, but as you are all aware leafs come down every fall!
This past summer a curious looking vine started to emerge from the leaf pile. I was excited because I thought it was going to be watermelons. It wasn't just a weed, that I knew. My neighbor told me it could be pumpkins. She asked if we had tossed anything into our pile and I told her it could be pumpkins or watermelons. It was exciting to see the development of our surprise plant!
Then it started to bear fruit! The kids were amazed and we would check on the growth of mystery plant very often. We still were not quite sure if we had watermelons or pumpkins. The fruit began to develop even more and fortunately my neighbor has a pumpkin book and we were able to quickly decipher that we indeed had pumpkins growing in our leaf pile!
I told my neighbor that this would make great lessons in our life's journey.
These seeds were thrown into this pile and went thru fire, rain, snow and all sorts of conditions and what did we enjoy from their perile? Three great looking pumpkins for us to enjoy this fall! If we as Christians can go through our trials under all sorts of pressure and nasty conditions what we will look like at the outcome?
The Old Testament book of Malachi talks about God being like refiner's fire. In Chapter 3 verse 2 it states, "But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap." Our God will refine his believers to make us more pure. We can have a greater outcome bearing more fruit like our pumpkins.
