After reading an article written by a former potato farmer, I was reminded of a movie I watched several years ago entitled “Faith Like Potatoes”. The films depicts a struggling family with several young children and a borderline abusive and faithless father.
After their circumstances force them to live out of a small RV for a time, he is able to obtain a plot of land to begin potato farming. Although plagued by drought and warned his crop will fail, his recent conversion assures him God will take care of them. Eventually, harvest time arrives and the workers doubtfully begin to dig up the dirt. Much to their amazement, large, healthy potatoes appear, row after row, and the family is saved. As everyone rejoices and dances around the field, it begins to rain. The drought has ended.
Just as God urged the father in this movie to plant potatoes despite the odds, Elijah urges Ahab to make haste in today’s first reading, despite no apparent sign of rain. Sometimes we are so stubborn, refusing to move and rooted to the spot by our obstinacy, when God only wants to shake us up for our own good.
God promises to bless us in abundance. Today’s Psalmist proclaims:
You have visited the land and watered it;
greatly have you enriched it.
God’s watercourses are filled;
you have prepared the grain.
Thus have you prepared the land:
drenching its furrows, breaking up its clods,
Softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.
You have crowned the year with your bounty,
and your paths overflow with a rich harvest;
The untilled meadows overflow with it,
and rejoicing clothes the hills.
God’s plans are so much better, brighter and more bountiful than our own. We corner ourselves inside of our own ideas, jealousies, or supposed needs. We are sometimes blessed to see the greater picture and sometimes we are not. But what we are always called to do is trust. Just as Ahab eventually trusted Elijah’s forecast and descended the mountain before he got soaked, God asks us to trust his ways in order to bless us abundantly. And since he desires to shower us something fierce, you may want to bring an umbrella, just in case.
Tami Urcia is wife and mother to her small army of boys. She works full time at Diocesan and is a freelance translator and blogger (BlessedIsshe.net and CatholicMom.com) She loves tackling home projects, keeping tabs on the family finances, and finding unique ways to love. Tami spent early young adulthood as a missionary in Mexico, then worked and traveled extensively before finishing her Bachelor’s Degree. Her favorite things to do are spending time outside with the kiddos, quiet conversation with the hubby, and an occasional break from real life by getting a pedicure or a haircut. You can find out more about her here.
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