John 15:7-8 (NIV) “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
My very limited experience with peach trees and blueberry bushes on our property in Michigan helped me realize some important lessons illustrated in this passage. God makes the flower appear on the branch, bees pollinate the flowers and fruit appears. Pruning helps, fertilizing helps, watering is essential, and sunlight is essential. God sends the sunshine and the rain. God created a system that allows nature to take rotten food and worms turn it into compost that fertilizes the soil that allows the trees and plants to absorb nutrients. In the same way, God provides all our spiritual needs. The farmer prunes the dead or useless branches once a year. Only healthy branches that remain connected to the tree bear fruit. Farmers pride themselves in techniques that produce larger and more abundant fruits but really the farmer cannot make the tree produce any fruit. God does it all.
In our spiritual life, God produces all the fruit, we need to be a good branch that remains connected to God to avoid pruning. If there are things we know we can do to help make larger and more abundant fruit we should do them.
God answers prayer, “ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” God is like a loving parent he wants to give us whatever we want. Ask God in prayer, He will provide all or emotional, spiritual, and physical needs that are for our enduring good. But being a wise parent he knows to only give us the things that is for our ultimate good that will help us grow and bear more fruit.
What a time of celebration for the God when the harvest is ready, when all the fruit can be picked and collected in the barns. When we are mature and ready for use! God made it all happen! This farming analogy demonstrates how God is glorified when His people mature into a right relationship with him and the yummy fruit of our lives can be enjoyed by all.
In your experience, what are some things you have done that has made your life's fruit, juicer, larger, and more delicious?
About Me
- Tamara Storie
- Listening to the quiet is rare at my house. With five children and a small zoo life often has a way of getting loud and crazy. One small moment in time goes like this... Someone drops the pancakes on the floor, the dog thinks its in doggy heaven, another someone is yelling that the dog is eating breakfast while someone else is trying to save breakfast for the humans in the house. My goal is to take the "moments" in life, look through the eyes of the heart to see the lessons God wants to teach. I hope you will share with me your moments and lessons as well.
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