Inspirations from my Garden: First Fruits
“As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord your God.”
—Exodus 34:26 NLT
“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine.”
—Proverbs 3:9-10 NLT
Intro: When I first started reading about the concept of first fruit, I always thought of it in the sacrificial sense—like how Christians and Jews believe Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son to God. In this case, God didn’t require Abraham to offer up his son but instead said to Abraham according to Genesis 22:12 in the Christian Bible, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Later, an angel of God appeared to Abraham on God’s behalf saying to Abraham in verses 16-18, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” In this story, we’re introduced to the concept that if we offer and/or are willing to offer our “first fruit” or first blessings to God, we will be rewarded with way more than what was sacrificed. I always acknowledged this as a really beautiful concept to apply to life; that is until I started gardening.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
—Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT
Blog: First Fruit
I started indoor gardening a couple months ago, some time at the end of May 2025. During this time, when my first seedlings sprouted, within a week or two, they just fell down: dead. I suspected it was because I over-watered or under-watered the plants or because they got too much or not enough sunlight, or the room temperature wasn’t ideal for them, but then something else happened. Every time more seedlings of different varieties began growing, one day they would just mysteriously die—something would fall on them, an accident would happen, I’d forget to water them, or randomly they would literally just wither away for no apparent reason. Then it dawned on me: My first plants are always going to be the sacrificial little lamb that endure the beatings of the universe taking advantage of its ability to expose to me my learning curve! In other words, with experience comes knowledge of how to battle the elements of life.
Later on, at some point, I planted some rosemary seeds. The first three sprouted rather quickly, but were a bit feeble and eventually two of them died. Weeks later about thirty more rosemary seedlings sprouted and they have the strength to this day to endure more than the early sprouting seeds were able to handle. This shows us that speed does not always equate to strength and definitely doesn’t always equate to endurance.
Exodus 34:26, gives the instruction to “bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord.” It falsely can convince us that the Bible is saying here that our first harvests are always the best. On the contrary, the words “best of the first harvest” almost implies that there are many parts of your first harvest that won’t be very great. Sometimes, we wish for speed when we really should be appreciating the quality of the blessings that didn’t come so fast. Other times in life, we learn what is required to maintain a healthy harvest by learning from the process.
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