WAITING FOR FRUIT

I have a Kansas Apricot tree in my yard.  It’s not really suited to the cold climate in the Chicago area, but it's special to me because it’s a seedling from my grandmother’s tree in Kansas.  Although it blooms beautifully every year, it has only produced apricots twice in the twenty-five years I’ve had it! 

The second time it produced, I saved some of the apricot pits, and from them started some seedlings.  I planted one in the front yard where it has grown into a beautiful tree; but unfortunately, it’s so eager to bloom that it produces its blossoms with the first warm weather each year, only to meet the same fate as the mother tree.

Last year we had an unusually early spring.  By March, everything had blossomed, and by early April, both apricot trees were full of little apricots.  I was thrilled, thinking that I might finally get a crop.  But, alas, it was not to be.  In mid-April we had three consecutive nights of below freezing temperatures, and all the little apricots turned black and fell off. 

But this year is different.  Spring is delayed.  It’s mid-April and the trees are still dormant.  Easter has come and gone without any flowers in bloom.  The forecast is for more chilly weather for the next fifteen days. 

Perhaps—just perhaps—my apricot tree won’t bloom until the danger of freezing weather is past.  Perhaps this year it will produce fruit.  But I must always remember that my special Kansas apricot tree is a victim of its environment.

I think about this tree a lot since it’s in my line of vision from my living room picture window.  It makes me think about my own life—whether or not I’m “bearing fruit.”  Am I like this tree?  Am I too eager to “make things happen?”  Is it possible that in my zeal to produce “fruit” I miss God’s timing?  Does the “freezing weather” of life interfere with my plan to produce fruit?

The Bible uses the imagery of bearing fruit metaphorically—the consequences of an action are frequently described as its fruit.  One of the ways Jesus uses it is to speak of himself as the vine and those who believe in him as the branches. 

“Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

The reality is that in order to produce meaningful fruit for the Kingdom of God, one must be plugged into Jesus.  When he is in control and working through us, the timing will be right and the fruit good.

How comforting it is to be a fruiting branch grafted into a vine through which empowering juices flow, enabling one to produce fruit according to his will and in his “season.”  He is the one who determines the right timing for the fruit to be produced; my part is to make sure I am “abiding” in him and have my will lined up with his will.

“Waiting for fruit” then involves being yielded to Jesus, committed to his will, and waiting for his timing.  The words of the Psalmist state the results so clearly:

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.”   (Psalm 1:3)

I’m still hoping and waiting for fruit from the apricot tree in my yard, but an even greater desire is that my life would exhibit his fruit in his timing.