Two Trees

My husband and I were out in the yard last evening, picking blueberries from our amazingly productive blueberry bush. I was carrying the bucket inside, when I walked past our pretty fig tree...that gives us no fruit. I said to Luis, "This tree is so beautiful, the leaves are so healthy looking and green...but I feel like when Jesus walked past the fig tree with no fruit and cursed it, because it gives us nothing." That was all that was said...but I kept thinking about that tree...I realized it's like many of us. We can look beautiful and perfect on the outside. Only the tiniest of blemishes, which are easily overlooked. Growing by leaps and bounds, but not doing what we were created to do. No fruit. Nothing of lasting value. Nothing of nourishment for anyone else. Nothing.

We have another tree in a different part of our yard. It's a sad little peach tree. I thought the tree was completely dead this past winter, as I broke a branch only to see how very brittle the dead wood really was. Well, I ended up breaking off almost half of the little tree that day...all dead wood. But to my amazement, this past spring, there were flowers on that lop-sided "dead" tree. Then, this summer, we actually picked fruit...not huge peaches, but sweet, juicy delicious little ones. I remember thinking back to how I was ready to have my husband chop that little tree down, to plant something more pleasing to the eye...like the fig tree...but I began to see what a mistake that would have been...I began to see its real value.

I made a decision right then and there. I want to be that peach tree. No, it's not perfect looking, it doesn't stand out as the best of those around it...and it surely would not win any horticultural awards...in fact, most people would probably walk right past it without giving it a second thought. But the fruit is priceless. With a little pruning and breaking away, it produced more than anyone thought imaginable. Fulfilling the appetite of those around it. Doing exactly what it was created to do...bear good fruit.

The fig tree will also remain. Not because it is really anything of worth...other than a constant reminder of "having the appearance of Godliness, but lacking it's power." (2 Timothy 3:5)...something of which, I pray, I am never accused.