Lemons
If I had accepted the years of formation prior and waited with patience for God to answer my prayers in HIS OWN TIME then I – like the lemon trees – would bear much fruit.
When we first moved into our home there was a lot of work to be done. We needed to renovate the whole interior of the house. Once that was finished – about a year and a half after we moved into the home – we needed to start working on the backyard. The garden was not beautiful and had been neglected by the previous owners and needed a lot of love and attention.
Now, when we were improving the home to make it comfortable for us to live in it, we were able to do things more cheaply because my husband is a very handy man and was able to complete many of the tasks with his own two hands. That meant that although things took a little longer to finish, they were certainly substantially cheaper and more affordable than if we were required to wait for tradesmen of various levels and abilities to complete the work.
However, after a year and a half of renovations – even with my husband’s handy skills – we were left with very little money and resources with which to improve the outside of the house. Because of these limitations I tried buying little seedlings to plant in the garden, but they did not survive even more than a few weeks before they were destroyed by the heat or the soil type or maybe by too much (or too little) love from their new owners.
Then, I stumbled upon some beautiful citrus trees in the supermarket one week. They were very affordable – only less than $10 per tree – and I thought to myself, as I gathered up my weekly groceries that week, if I buy ten trees and they live they will be a very good investment for our garden. And so, I took a gamble on those tress and brought them home – with difficulty as they barely fit inside my car – and made sure that we planted them in the garden.
Now, these trees were a little stronger than the seedlings. They were clearly a few years old and had been grown to the point where they might have a chance of surviving in the garden. We watered them and fertilised them. These days those trees produce a lot of fruit. We probably harvest about forty kilograms of lemons from those trees each year now. And there are also limes and oranges that grow on those trees.
And I have been thinking about that as I have been thinking about the blessings in my life. You see, God prepares me for each blessing He is sending my way. If I were to receive the blessing when I were unprepared for it, I – like those early seedlings – would die. However, if I had accepted the years of formation prior and waited with patience for God to answer my prayers in HIS OWN TIME then I – like the lemon trees – would bear much fruit.
And I have been thinking about that today as I have been speaking to my Beloved. For surely He is preparing me – even now – for every blessing…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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