Patiently waiting for fruit

Fruit trees, don’t you just love them? Okay, maybe you don’t think about fruit trees, but we all love what they produce – peach cobbler, cherry pie, apple fritters, poached pears – the delicious harvest of patiently waiting for fruit trees.

Did you know the average fruit tree takes 4 to 6 years to yield fruit? Watching a tree grow is like watching a turtle cross the road – endless. An old proverb says, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Personally, I want the fruit tree of 20 years ago, the mature, rooted and high yielding tree. I want the fruit, ripe and ready.

Backstory – the fruit tree took years of slow steady growth to create anchoring roots, which spread underground as wide as the widest branch. Chances are it withstood many storms and bouts of disease or pests that tried to extinguish the tree. Seasons of harsh weather and unfavorable growing conditions were faced. And yet, the fruit tree persevered, slowly and steadily, until the long anticipated day arrived and the fruit appeared.

Waiting for God’s work to yield visible fruit can be just like waiting for fruit trees to grow. Personally, I want the cherry pie and not a scrawny sapling. It may take years of preparation before the soil is even ready for planting. There is an abundance of work that goes into caring for and nurturing God’s work before fruit is seen. The hours are many and the work can be laborious and unrewarding. One may begin to wonder if any fruit will ever appear. And let’s be honest – sometimes the first fruits may be a little disappointing.

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times, “patience is a virtue.” In Latin, patiencia means endurance, submission, humility and suffering. The life of the tree embodies these characteristics as it submits and suffers to outside forces, humbles itself to pruning and shaping and endures the struggle of time. There is much occurring in the life of the tree that is not visible. And although we do not see growth, it is not absent. The day will arrive when the tree gives birth to fruit.

If you are planting “fruit trees” be encouraged. Soil preparation is the most important part to growing. If you are waiting to see fruit, remember, it does not appear over night; nothing that is of value ever does. Endurance, humility and suffering will be a part of the growing season.

Years from now you may be granted the gift of seeing the tree in all its splendor. You may even have a glimpse at those who were impacted by the fruit. I hope you get to see that. At the end of our care-taking season, I pray we have an orchard filled with trees. As caretakers we are asked to do just that, care for the fruit tree and provide the right environment for it to grow. And then we wait, patiently. The rest, the growth, is not our job. That, belongs to the One who breathed life into the tree in the first place.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor” (1 Corinthian 3:6-8).