Thinking Ahead

A man watched his 80-year-old neighbor planting a small mango tree.

"You don't expect to eat any mangoes from that tree, do you?" asked the man. "It will take at least 20 years before it bears fruit."

The old man rested on his spade and answered, "No, I don't think I'll ever see this tree bear mangoes. I'm too old for that. But it does not matter... All my life I have enjoyed mangoes... and yet they had never come from a tree which I had planted myself.

If other people had not planted mango trees, as I am doing now, I would never have had mangoes to enjoy. I'm just trying to pay them back now, and hope that the people who will enjoy these mangoes will go and plant some trees for people following them."

Jesus said in John 4:37, "one man plants and another reaps..."