My Life My Fruit
No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad
tree bear good fruit.
Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.
Luke 6:43-44 (NIV)
More
than fruits we can be called as “fruit pickers.”
We look for the results of our labor. Products, statistics, jobs are checked
off the list. We point to the fruit as a measure of our successes – the juicier
the better, the bigger the better, good healthy color, bountiful harvest and
plenty of it! We report on our fruit in many aspects of our lives: pointing to
success in our jobs with promotions and accolades, the outcome of children’s
accomplishments, their status and the endless comparison of their successes
with relatives and friends. We tend to define all people by their fruit –
identity is all wrapped up in the fruitfulness of our efforts in life and we
are judged by others with our apparent harvest.
Sometimes
the fruit is from a ‘good year.’ All the conditions were right and everything
fell into place for us – life was good. But since that time, the soil of our
heart has been left dormant, the ground left untilled, the seed was not
replanted and the watering was sporadic or non-existent. It is then we see the
fruit begin to shrivel. The neglect underneath has finally taken its toll on
the exposed visage.
This
one verse I suppose is a wake up call for many including me. Has my heart been
in dormant state? The
heart is our root system. When we are pressed to show what is really inside the
growing process, our mouths will betray us. In both Hebrew and Greek, the heart
is considered the center of the body’s essential functions: physical,
intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual. Jesus’
warning here was that a person’s actions flowed out of inner attitudes and
choices, whether these were good or evil. Do we allow society to re-direct our
source of nourishment saying, “this is just the way things are and nothing can
be done about changing it” – go with the flow – or are we ready to prepare the way for the
Lord by making a highway in the desert (Isaiah 40:3)?
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