About 20 years ago, I planted some apple trees. This was part of a long range contingency plan for the day when the local grocery closed…….for good. I cared for the trees and waited for my apples. After 5 years, I had one apple to show for my efforts. I gave up. Fast forward 15 years. Today I got out the chain saw and went down the hill to cut the apple trees down for firewood. One of them produced one sad little apple……..probably motivated by guilt or, perhaps, sheer terror. So, I made a deal…….with the apple tree. I will give you the care you need for 2 years. If you produce apples…..we’re OK. Otherwise, I’m going back to plan A and the chain saw. Very sensible, even Biblical.
But, then it occurred to me. How many times over the last 70 years has God looked at me and asked, “Where is the fruit I was expecting?” How many times has God considered tossing me into the woodpile and focusing his effort on someone who is more likely to produce fruit. Probably a lot more than I know.
Make no mistake.
God has expectations…….of me…….of you.
We fail to meet those expectations regularly……..perhaps daily.
But, unlike me and my apple trees, God is patient. He will continue to care for us right up to the day we die. Right up to the day when we show him the fruit that we have produced……… the fruit that he was expecting.
I hope I don’t disappoint him.
“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
Luke 13:6-10, ESV. A parable of Jesus
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah, 6:8, ESV
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus, John 15:12, ESV
“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Jesus, John 6:29, ESV