Of Fruit Trees and Faith

"When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father."  John 15:8

Every other summer when I was a little girl, our family would visit my Grandma Tis and Grandpa in Van Nuys, California.  It was the smell of the old fig tree in the backyard that always welcomed me back, even before my Grandma Tis made it to the door to welcome us inside.  There was so much love in this place, so much history in that little old house--the house my mother was born and raised in.

My older brother, sister and I would spend hours climbing in the old fig tree in the back yard.  There were lots of hiding places and secret passageways created by all the twisted branches.  We played make-believe games for hours in that wonderful old tree.

My brother, Jimmy, loved to climb above me and shake the branches, raining figs on me below.  We would gather them up and take them in to Grandma Tis for canning and baking.  

I remember sweet love, sweet smells, and talks about faith with my Grandma Tis.  It was a baked-in faith--not something separate and superficial.  It was faith like that fig tree.  You could smell it before you ever got to the door, and it's fruit dropped on your head without you even having to reach up and pick it.  

While walking through our neighborhood recently, I noticed the huge orange tree around the corner so loaded with oranges that it dropped them all around me as I walked by--and it wasn't even in season.  The next week, it was raining pecans outside my son's college dorm.  It took me back to the old fig tree in Grandma Tis' backyard and those talks about faith.

I was reminded that my life, my faith needs to be like those trees.  

I was reminded of 2 Timothy 4:2, "Preach the word: be instant, in season, and out of season: improve, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine."  GNV

What about you?  

Do you have a real faith that's baked-in?  Do people recognize it . . . before they even get to your door?  Is the fruit of your life so plentiful that it drops from your branches . . . without having to be picked? 

I don't know about you, but I want to have faith and bear much fruit like that old fig tree, like the orange tree in my neighborhood, and like the pecan tree near my son's dorm.

Oh, that our lives might exemplify the change that He makes in us, and bear much fruit for Him.

Goodnight, Runners.