A Hut in a Field

Isaiah 1:8 The Daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege

One time when I was in Central Asia, I went with a friend up to his mother’s house in a village in the mountains. We could look out and see for miles and miles. We looked out over this one big field, I think it was a vineyard. In the middle was a little broken down wooden thing. I asked him what it was.

In the harvest time, there are fields and fields of ripe fruit to harvest and process. They do it all by hand, with minimal machines and minimal automation. They also have minimal security-fences are often made of piles of stones or boards marking a boundary but operating mainly on the honor system (which is a joke in Central Asia!). At the time of the harvest, that little broken wooden thing is a shelter. It’s fixed up a bit and becomes a sturdy place to put a cushion to sleep on and to have a little roof for shade. It’s not fancy or sturdy, but when inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD it provided security to the whole place. When inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD it helped make the entire vineyard fulfill it’s purpose. When inhabited by the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD that little junky shack was the HQ and base of all operations for that vineyard

But at the end of the harvest, when the fruit is gone, the OWNER OF THE VINEYARD leaves too, and that little wooden deal shows that it really wasn’t sturdy or strong, but it was just what the OWNER needed for that time.