Growing fruit....

 I spent some time early in the morning yesterday with God.  I read Matthew 7:15-20.  "Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.  By their fruit you will recoognize them.  Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."   

It's so hard right now to know where the true and false prophets are.  The news is alarming and confusing.  Social media is polarizing.....so many opinions and so much drama and so much anger and hatred and angst.  It is a presidential election year which makes everything even crazier.....its hard to know who to trust.  I've been talking to God about these things recently....and yesterday He an I read this passage together from my bible.  

I love that he was helping me to read between the lines, hear the rests and pauses in the music, and find my filter back regarding all of the opinions and beliefs and trends and rules and popular thoughts in this strange season of history.  By their fruit, you will recognize them.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  

Don't try to convince me that your version of truth is correct.  Don't argue with me or try to interject your beliefs based on some article you read about this or that.....show me your fruit.  If you bear good fruit I know you are a good tree.  If you don't bear good fruit then please just move along.  In the mean time, I am going to be living my life reaching for the Lord, where I am planted.  I am working to be a good tree and bear good fruit.  It is a full time job, after all.  

Preparing to send my older kids to college, and one to high school and 3 to elementary school is both exciting and stressful.  Claire and I were talking about all of the rules and guidelines coming for the college students....and I said to her.....well, hunny.  What if this is a training ground for much harder things coming ahead.  What if God is not delivering us from this pandemic because it is a season of training and preparation for much harder seasons of persecution, trial, hardship, challenge.  Perhaps he is giving us a chance to show our fruit.  How are we responding?  How are we reacting?  What does the world see in us?  is it good or bad fruit?  As Christians, we have an opportunity to bear good fruit.  The world will see the fruit we bear and it is so easy to tell if fruit is good or bad.  I want to bear good fruit.  

This week we went to Costco, just Roger and I.  I mostly wanted fruit.  Fruit in the natural world.  Costco fruit is my favorite.  I don't know how they do it but their fruit is always so good.....we got bananas, and peaches and watermelon and pineapple and it was all perfectly ripe and delicious.  I want the fruit I bear to be just that....perfectly ripe and timely and ready, and pleasing and ready to take in.  I want my life to be that fruit! 

The other passage I meditated on was from the old testament, where God parted the Red Sea so that his people could pass through and be delivered from the Egyptians.  I believe that God could deliver us from this pandemic.....and the craziness of the political climate and the social injustice polarization....if He could effortlessly part the waters of a sea so that an entire nation could pass through....he could do this too.  But will he?  I don't know that we would learn much if he did.  We are such a people of selfishness, meanness, self-gratification and the constant need for comfort and pleasure....maybe we have more to learn here in this space.  Maybe while we are begging for deliverance from our inconvenience God is waiting for us to plant some fruit trees and see what we can grow.  

I'm no expert on any of it but God does have my attention right now.  If I can, I will try to keep my eyes fixed on him and not on the world......and tend my garden.....and grow good fruit.