In Your Not so Perfect Season
Seasons come and go and much like a new Spring with flowers
blooming or a Fall ready for harvest, there is a rhythm and a plan that we can
rely on. Sometimes in life I feel like my rhythm is just completely off. I
remember thinking as I was graduating high school that I wasn’t ready for the
next season because I had no idea what direction I was supposed to go.
I think my most unforgettable
moment of crisis came when I was twenty four. My friends were: graduating
college, getting careers, getting married, having babies, building homes, some had
even started graduate programs. Meanwhile I was: recently single, living with
my parents, and years away from graduating college. Yes it is possible that my
choices and my plans had not been given over to the perfect management of God,
that out of fear for choosing the wrong path I chosen no path. But the truth is
that God had his watchful eye over me, even in all of my hasty decision making,
my missteps, my failings, my desert moments and my overwhelming urge to apply
for the world’s most useless person award; he was still there.
If you are going to live in a place with little to no
climate change, most people would pick a tropical Island, but my life was a
cold frost desert of Siberian death. I had no idea that even though my life
looked aimless and without purpose that the Master Craftsman was hard at work. It
felt more like everyone else knew exactly what they were doing, where they were
going and how they we going to get there, while I wandered in my desert.
I am not alone in having a season where either by
circumstance or choice I was out of rhythm. The bible is filled with our Heroes
of faith that found themselves out of rhythm more than in it.
Abraham and Sarah were unable to have children and God
promised them descendants so abundant that they would be like the stars in the
sky. Sarah was a little out of season as she gave birth to a boy in her old
age. And yet there was going to be no mistaking that God had done a miracle
among them.
And speaking of me wandering around in a desert, Moses, did
that too. First he was a slave adopted by a princess. He became an important
person who then became a murderer, who then ran away to become a shepherd. A
shepherd who was then recruited by God to be the leader of God’s people and
would take the Israelites from captivity to victory. Then not many steps after seeing God do
marvelous works, they would wander a desert for forty years in search of their
Promised Land. Moses’s titles and trials were sometimes circumstantial and sometimes
chosen but no title or trial could define and shape him into anything other
than the man God was shaping him to be. God wastes nothing. He is in control.
I think we believe a lie that if we don’t produce fruit in every
season or in the proper season that we are not productive. I was fruitless in
many seasons but that did not mean I was incapable of baring fruit.
It is fall here and while all my other plants are starting
to wither and die I have this crazy little strawberry plant that just doesn’t
seem to know much about when it is supposed to die, or fruit for that matter.
It had no fruit during strawberry season but now all of a sudden it is giving
me these sweet little strawberries.
The first thing I noticed about it fruiting in this season
is that it stands out by a mile. All the plants around it are pale and withered
while this green lively strawberry plant is producing fruit.
The second thing I noticed is that the birds, bugs and
critters are not stealing the fruit, it is as if they are completely unaware of
it due to it not being the season for it.
The third thing I noticed is that I am over the moon excited
to eat these strawberries because I haven’t had a fresh strawberry since the
spring, so the fruit in this season seems sweeter and more noticeably pleasant
on my pallet.
This strawberry is thriving in its “not so perfect season”, whether
it is the season that is imperfect with unkind storms and trials, droughts and
disasters or the plant that is just out of tune with its natural rhythm, it doesn’t
matter because the creator of both the season and the strawberry is still on
His throne.
Stop and consider this: That strawberry wasn’t
producing visible fruit in the spring because it was developing its roots. Are
we so dependent on seeing fruit that we would risk using all our energy on that
instead of on something deeper? If we miss our developing moments with God we
may become shallow and potentially allow death to take us over because we have
no roots. In these seasons of trial and doubt we must focus all of our energy
on that which is most valuable; our dependence on Christ, our foundation. Then in
the most amazing way when we aren’t even expecting it, we will bear fruit.
The fruit that came from the strawberry that was out of
season was three things:
Beautifully noticed by everyone as a miracle that makes us stop
and question, “How is this possible”? Giving glory to a perfect God who often
uses our, off rhythm moments to shine brighter than ever before.
It was protected from predators that weren’t aware of it or
expecting it. No enemy we have calculates the miracle of God’s unexpected plans,
the enemy sees pain and trail as defeat but we know from the Story of the cross
that Christ proved that it those painful moments in surrender to God that can
produce a powerful punch.
And the fruit was desirably delicious! It was set apart for a
special and divine moment. It tasted sweeter and was a blessing that was
magnified by the waiting. How great and glorious will be that day that
we produce fruit that isn’t just a reaction to a season but is produced by the
nutritional feeding of the depths of our being. When we feed our Spirit we will
become strong in ways that we didn’t know we could be and do things that defy
the natural way of things.
Some apple trees will fruit every two years, one year it
will fruit and the next it will hold back, waiting patiently not just so that its
harvest is plentiful, but also so it can tend to the nutritional needs of the
tree. How sad if we cut down a tree that wasn’t fruiting but was healing just because
we couldn’t see the fruit. Yet we cut ourselves down and we judge the process
by other trees fruit. We become obsessed with that which is seen and forget the
importance of the growth that is unseen. Do not waste your season of growth no
matter if it is through trial or triumph. Our primary focus shouldn’t be the
fruit but the foundation of who we are. Focus all of yourself on Jesus; On the
vine.
John 15:1-17
“I am the true vine, and my Father
is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no
fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it
will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of
the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain
in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither
can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me
and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If
you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers;
such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If
you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will
be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear
much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have
I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands,
you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain
in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in
you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one
than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are
my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I
have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have
made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you
and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and
so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This
is my command: Love each other.
All we are asked to do is to remain in Him and above all
else love, Him and others, He will do all the rest. He will prune, He will develop
the fruit, and He will dwell within us. That last part of the verse says “You
did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and
bear fruit- fruit that will last-“
Fruit that will last! How beautiful to bear fruit that will
last.
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