My husband on the other hand has planted a seed from a grapefruit our boys love to eat. He has cared for it from a seed and it is now a full grown plant. He checks on it daily, setting it outside when necessary, buying new pots for it as its roots expand. When he started this process, he found out that it could take YEARS for you to have any fruit. I would have been out immediately. But not him; that didn't deter him in the least. I think the challenge and effort needed was even more motivating for him. He knows that fruit will take time...and if you know my story well, you really understand that he of all people understands that fruit will take time.
Recently, I was reading a book to my brood about how we get our food. It was a sweet non-fiction book about the very beginning of seeds and bread and fruit and cheese. As we read about one flower-forming plant after another: tomatoes, oranges, apples, there was one consistency that hit me. Before the fruit could produce, the flower had to die.
How true is this about the fruit we are to bear for our Jesus? Most people would believe the flower is the most beautiful part of the tree and the world would probably say the same thing about the part of us that needs to die in order for the real fruit to live. The flower the world praises might look good from the outside bringing us praise and fluffing our pride, but it is actually going to have to die in order for the miraculous fruit to be created in us. And, it's going to take time. If you are a gardener of your "fruit" like I am in real life, your one week of watering and motivation will get you nowhere. Your white-knuckled "I'm going to be soooo good, open my Bible, show up to church for a couple of weeks" mentality will only grow your plant the length of your motivation.
Real fruit stands the test of time. It is produced when care and attention are given long after motivation fades, when storms come, when sunshine floods, when change and pruning is required, when being still is all that can be done. And finally, the flowers will bloom -that must die- to create the fruit that nourishes everyone around. Cultivate His vine, my friends, the world needs your fruit more than your flower.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
