Bearing Fruit

I wrote this entry while the site was down but I still think it is of value so I will post it now anyway.

I am in so much pain from my osteoarthritis some Sundays that I don’t go to church. They post their services online so I will always watch at home so I watched the sermon and it was about the fruits of the Holy Spirit. You can watch it here if you wish.

I felt like this message was meant for me. The pastor was saying it’s not about forcing yourself to display the fruits of the spirit – love, joy, etc. It’s about becoming the kind of tree that will grow those fruits automatically the way Jesus did. The message was that we should be thankful for the trials we get sent because they are pruning the tree of our soul to make us more like Jesus so we can behave more like him.

I went to bed after watching the sermon and woke up to do my morning bible reading and prayer time and the Lord gave me an image. It was the one at the top of this entry. This tree is a Naval Orange tree and it is growing in my back yard. When I first moved in two years ago it was smaller, more compact, and did not fruit. Last year it fruited and it was plentiful. This year it looks like this.

I have never touched this tree apart from picking the fruit last year. No spraying, no pruning, just watering.  Today some branches are dead, other branches look like they are dying, and several branches are so weighed down by fruit they look like they will break.

The fruit you can see below was not going to be ripe for another 6 months. I feared the branch would break if the oranges grew any bigger and I removed multiple oranges with the result that the ones that were left were getting too big to be sustainable by the tree.

I was worrying that the fruit was going to kill the tree. It certainly seemed to be damaging it.

When I thought about the tree, and my worries for it, God seemed to be telling me fruit that is not grown on strong branches will damage a tree. Branches will not grow strong if they are not pruned.

It made me realise we need to be pruned if we are to be strong enough to sustain, or even produce, good fruit! I want to produce good fruit so I will give God thanks for taking the time to prune me so I will become the kind of spirit that naturally produces the desired fruits.

I wrote this quite a few months ago and I am sad to report that the tree appears to have died. I’m still watering it but it is not looking good.