Silver Queen corn is hard to beat. Sweet white corn which seems to melt
in your mouth. Lots of butter and some salt make it even better! Many freeze corn in late
summer to enjoy during the winter months. In the winter the taste of delicious sweet corn
makes you forget the hard day’s work that went into preparing it.
Our family just finished preparing nearly four hundred ears of corn. We
started early in the morning and did not finish to some time in the afternoon—usually
we celebrate by having pizza! You begin by husking each ear and removing all the corn
silk. Then it must be boiled for three minutes and dropped into cold water to cool
briefly. This is followed by stripping the corn from the cob and placing it in freezer
bags. It is a lot of work, and a lot to clean up. (It helps to live next to a corn field
where you can dump the husks and cobs!)
When working hard to prepare corn for enjoyment during the cold days of
winter, one cannot help but think of the Biblical principle, "Suffer now, glory
later." Throughout Scripture the Christian is instructed to be working and suffering
now, but with the expectation of the glory that is to follow in the future. The risen Lord
spoke of this on the road to Emmaus. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things,
and to enter into his glory?" Paul spoke of it. "For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
be revealed in us." (Rom. 8:18) Peter too speaks of this truth. "That the trial
of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried
with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus
Christ:" (1 Pet. 1:7)
This should be an encouragement to all who suffer and labor for the
Lord. The reward is not now, but later. Man seeks his glory now, only to have it fade
away. "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:" (1 Peter 1:24) Believers
on the other hand suffer now, but look forward "to an inheritance incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven…," (1 Pet. 1:4) Those
who labor in caring for the Lord’s sheep, are also encouraged by the fact that "
when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not
away."
So when we are enjoying the delicious sweet corn in the cold days of
February, it can remind us of this truth, "Suffer now, glory later."