Harvest

A 2 Way Street

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In our backyard is a lemon tree that loves to give fruit. Every year right after Christmas you will find it loaded with hundreds of lemons. No one has ever done any pruning spraying or fertilizing. It loves where it lives. I have discovered that its secret is in its flowers. Each year in early March when the weather turns warm it is covered with the sweetest smelling blossoms this side of heaven. Every bee in the county knows where our tree lives and lends its help in making sure next year will be a bang up harvest again.

Have you stoped lately to check if the sweet aroma of a relationship with Christ is in our attitudes and words? Is there anemic looking fruit on our branches? Jesus isn’t trying to whip us into action to produce a better crop. He is appealing tp us to just learn to love where we live in Him. If we will delight in the backyard He has planted us in, He promises to fill us with fruit. But without Him there won’t be a single lemon on our tree!

It’s Almost Time!

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 Moving into the home that once my Dad’s in Florida has meant some major changes in our lifestyle including a good deal of downsizing. There was not much room for a garden here though we were able to preserve a few Irises in pots along the walk.  But tucked away in the back yard between the property line and an overgrown holly is a lemon tree that my Dad planted about thirty years ago. It large lemons are, according to our friends,  the best on earth! Though that tree stands no more than eight feet high, each year it yields scores of the biggest and sweetest lemons anywhere. It simply finds a way in its small spot to give more than anyone expected.
If our life sometimes feels like we’ve been downsized a notch or two, we don’t need to give in to discouragement. In our tiny patch of ground where our roots are planted, God still sends just enough sunlight and rain for us to grow. Yielding sweet fruit really has nothing to do with talent, effort or opportunity.  Yielding fruit means that, like our lemon tree, just keep growing till branches bud, buds become flowers, and flowers to small green fruit. Then one morning to everyone’s joyful surprise it will be time for another year of lemonade and lemon meringue pie! Yes everything has its season and here it means the lemons are almost ripe.

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Sleeping in Harvest?

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More years ago than I care to share I remember helping friends with putting up hay. Though they had begun early in the morning the 1700 bale count was just too many for them to finish alone. The hay was perfect and lay in endless numbers on the field but on the horizon loomed dark thunderstorms. At hearing of their dilemma over the phone we jumped into our pick-up truck and sped across miles of dirt roads to help. What fun we had that night as we pitched in to help our tired friends. At 2 a.m. the rain finally came but just 50 bales still lay outside the barn.

Today there is also a harvest and there are hearts ready to be gathered into the Father’s barn. There is also a storm on the horizon and it is coming our way. Are we willing to give all to see as many as possible brought safely in or will we hang up the phone and go to sleep for the night?