Summer is gone, and fall is upon us.  God has given us an abundant harvest.  More than we could think of or ask for.  We have been able to distribute hundreds of pounds of fresh produce to needy friends.  It is so rewarding to do the things Jesus would do.  There is a harmony with nature and the natural order that God has placed in the earth.  God is a God of planting and harvest.  Our lives reflect that very process, a natural spiritual process.  Jesus spent many parables talking about seeds falling on the stony ground or good ground and about wheat and tares. 

When I look at our okra stalks, I see flowers and the natural process of producing fruit.  It is a very busy, fruitful plant.  Alas the season shall end, and the plants will die.  Don’t be sorrowful, they did what God created them to do in their season.  I ask myself if I were an okra plant or a tomato plant, would I be satisfied with what I produced?

As a believer and disciple, am I satisfied with what God has produced through me?  He has watered me with His blessings, and I have grown into his likeness.  He has planted me deeply beside the still waters.  I want to believe that I have been so deeply rooted in His love that I cannot be moved from His words.  Does my spirit so reflect the fruit of the spirit that people delight to see me as much as I delight in the corn stalks or the green luscious black-eyed peas? 

Jesus was very much a gardener.  He knows that for a seed to produce, to spring forth, with life it had to die first as we are reminded in John 12:24 – “ . . . except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

Sometimes we must be willing to be planted and die to our selfish, stubborn, self-willed ways before God can use us to make abundant fruit and happiness.   It is never too late to plant ourselves in Jesus’ obedience and surrender to total discipleship.  Then as His friend, we will produce much fruit and the fruit will remain.

— Written by Pa