A Good Tree - Day 88 Month 3-29 Week 13-4
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
Numbers 1:1-46 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%201%3A1-46&version=NASB1995
Psalm 72 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2072&version=NASB1995
Isaiah 62 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2062&version=NASB1995
Luke 6:20-45 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%206%3A20-45&version=NASB1995
A Good Tree
We have some fruit trees and berry bushes in our yard. It’s really only 1 fruit tree - an apple tree. All of the berry bushes and the apple tree are out of control. As far as berries are concerned, we have strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, current and some poison ones. We don’t eat the poison ones. The apple tree is a little east from our house close to the shoulder of Shore Road. The neighbours told us it’s a crabapple tree and the NS Power guys last year laughed at the “crabapple” tree when they were trimming it (really butchering it) to avoid the power lines above it. We know better! Sylvia did some minimal pruning the second year we were here, but neither of us knew what we were doing with pruning. Even with that minimal pruning, the apples were a lot larger that summer.
Someone who knows what they are doing dropped by last week to help us prune our apple tree. I did most of the cutting while Ern told me what to do. Ern’s an older gentleman that was part of Syl’s Monday writing group that Syl no longer is part of. It turns out that Ern knew people from the Mennonite communities my father and his family were a part of, including Henry Pauls who was probably a generation before my uncle, Henry Pauls, but I digress. Ern directed me to cut probably 1/3 of the branches off the tree to get light better into the tree. Ern explained how the tree reacts after pruning, but that didn’t make Sylvia cringe any less as she saw 1/3 of the tree removed. In the end, Sylvia said, “now it looks like a tree from one of those well trimmed orchards.” We know the apples this year will be awesome and that apple tree is now going to be a “Good Tree,” even though it’s a very old tree that has at times had infestations.
In our Luke reading today we are reading a part of what is referred to as the “sermon on plain.” In Luke 6:43,44 , we read “For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit.”
I find it interesting that the apple tree in our front yard was referred to as a crabapple tree, but now we know we will see that it is an official full size apple tree when we see its fruit in the late summer. This is comparable to a message we heard two Sundays ago at the church we attend. The Jesus follower sometimes needs to be “pruned.” Pruning is not enjoyable for the Jesus follower or for the apple tree but the results are dramatic. In the end we both are better for it. Before the Jesus follower is pruned, they may bear no fruit or bad (useless) fruit and their effectiveness is limited. Once pruned, the Jesus follower becomes more effective at representing Jesus to their neighbours. We are once again reminded that “I AM” loves us and wants us to love Him and to love our neighbours. He prunes us because He loves us, we are then more effective at loving both God and our neighbours.
Have a fruitful day!
Steve
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