pick your fruit

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Apple trees.  In the midwest, in October, this is a familiar scene.  Healthy trees, laden with apples that weigh down the branches and sometimes even fall to the ground.  The stores are full of many different varieties of apples, as are the farmer's markets......and the recipes for apples are abundant.  It is apple season here.

This week, in my driving around the county for work, and walking dogs on sunny afternoons, God showed me something as I admired the apple trees.  I want to share it with all of you.  I pray God will use my words to give you the same deeper understanding of him that I have in this illustration.  Like the actual fruit, God's blessings and his spiritual fruit are in season.  (always).  God's fruit is so plentiful that in its heaviness, the branches weigh down and get closer to the earth, so that we can reach them.  God longs to share His fruit with us......his blessing.....his food.  The bible says "taste and see that the Lord is good".....(Psalm 34:8).... Partly .and that verse sang in my head this week as I admired the apple trees.

Here's the thing.  The fruit cannot get into my mouth by simply riding by the trees and admiring them, or walking under them and hearing the crunch of half-mushed apples under my feet.  I can only enjoy the flavor and experience and benefit of an apple if I reach up and pick one......and then accept it into my body.  Waiting for God to answer all my prayers and provide all my needs is kind of like riding past the apple trees.......but actually reaching for the apples and eating them......and then exploring recipes for how to use them in lots of ways......now that's what its all about in apple season.

In regard to spiritual fruit.......we must also reach for it, ask for it, approach it......to enjoy the blessing and provision that God has waiting on those trees.  The fruit trees are heavy with ripe fruit.  Apples.    Peace.  Love.  Joy.  Patience.  Gentleness.  Self Control, Kindness, Goodness , Faithfulness...all there for the taking.

Lord, help me to not just admire your fruit but to determine each day to reach for it......and thank you for the abundance of your provision......and the vivid reminder using apple trees in Autumn.  

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