The Dreaded Tomato Hornworm

Jonah 4:7  But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered.

The context of the verse above is that Jonah was sent to the city of Nineveh to tell the people to repent of their wickedness or their city would be destroyed.  When the inhabitants of Nineveh turned from their wicked ways and repented, God spared the city.  This angered Jonah.

Jonah found a plant (not a tomato plant, but a castor oil plant) and sat under it. This plant provided shade for Jonah and he enjoyed it.  Then comes the verse highlighted above.  Without the plant, Jonah was in great discomfort and longed for death.

God spoke to Jonah and questioned why Jonah could muster compassion for a mere plant that he did not tend nor cause to grow, but he could not show compassion for 120,000 people that God created, loved and desired His best for their lives?

The chapter ends there.  How could Jonah answer that?  Yes people are far more important than plants.

The photo above is one I took yesterday of a tomato hornworm.  He looks pretty ferocious, doesn't he?  He is about as big around and as long as your index finger, with "V" shaped markings along his side and with a scary looking spike on his rear end.  He has an appetite as ferocious as his appearance, too.  He is able to eat all the upper leaves off of a tomato plant faster than poop through a goose.  His coloration camouflages him so that he can do his dirty work for a while. Pretty soon, though, the leafless tomato plant, along with big caterpillar poop on the leaves below, alerts you to yet another nemesis in the garden.

I just pull them off with my fingers.  They aren't easy to pry off the tomato vine.  It is as if they have suction cups on their feet.  Finally, I pull him free from the fence and toss him over the fence to 100 hens waiting with bated breath for the fat, juicy, tomato nourished, delicious morsel.  The early bird does indeed get the worm and scurries off to try to gobble the caterpillar down without having to share it with another hen.  If I would have allowed him to grow, he would have eventually turned into a hawkmoth, but if I did that, I wouldn't have much of a tomato plant left, would I?  I pulled 3 off yesterday and another two the day prior.  One must be vigilant with caterpillars around, not to mention the squirrels we mentioned yesterday.

I have tended for the tomato plants since January of this year.  Right now I am battling squirrels, tomato hornworms, and stink bugs for a harvest.  It is not easy.  I do have compassion for the tomato plant (and contempt for the squirrels, hornworms, and stink bugs).  But it is just a plant.  People need compassion and need grace extended.  Just like Jonah at the end of Chapter 4, I need to examine my heart.