bearing fruit

Finding Hope in the Seed of Honor

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

Honor is a seed sown inside of each of us. How we nurture and tend to that seed within every season and every step of our lives will determine what that seed produces.

From that seed, fruit can be borne. The fruit might be integrity, determination, humility, servitude, fairness, courage or trustworthiness.

If not properly nurtured along the way, resentment, revenge, selfishness, arrogance, dishonesty, maliciousness or wickedness may be what is produced from this seed that, at one time, had so much potential.

My friends! Choose honor. Bear fruit. I have to remind myself to do the same.

The path of honor is rarely straight and easy, but it is a path of peace, of joy, of contentment and of opportunity…opportunity for rewards that serve to better self, family, community, and Kingdom with what really matters in life.

What do you see around you?

Do you see the seeds of honor?
Do you see the fruit of the seed?
Do you see a harvest that honors, collects and gathers for a greater purpose?
Do you see rotted fruit that once had much potential?
Do you see the seeds of destruction?

If my life is anything like yours, we’re seeing every bit of it…even in places where we’d expect to find the opposite.

What can we do?

Look carefully,
plant carefully,
harvest carefully…
and do it all very prayerfully.

 

 

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The Quest for Life’s Purpose & Meaning

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CT.4-5
Photo and artwork belong to ComparisonTrap.org

This is the continuation of an earlier post about a Bible study in which I’m facilitating and participating.

Jesus replied:  “Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your mind.” This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
All the Law and the Prophets hang
on these two commandments.
~ Matthew 22:37-40

The Comparison Trap:  Week Four, Day Five… Some of my reminders and my takeaways from the daily devotional include:

As Christians, we often wonder what our purpose in life is meant to be. We wonder where God might be leading us… how He might be calling us… what He would want us to be doing with our life on this side of eternity.

Seeking and searching for those answers can lead us toward love, peace, joy, and hope, and they can lead us into darkness, depression, addiction or hopelessness. There is often a great struggle to find our purpose.

The Bible is the powerful Word of God.
It full of His words to us.
It is full of instruction.

Authors have made millions speaking at seminars, workshops, writing self-help books, and promoting their latest and greatest methods for figuring out our lives. Truly, the answer to finding our purpose can be summed up in these four Scripture verses.

The answer is:  Love God and love others.

Sandra reminds us that, “when we choose to honor and celebrate one another, we are honoring and celebrating someone precious to God.”  She goes on to say that, “Doing so serves us well by cleaning out envy and jealousy, but Jesus reminds us that it also serves God well.”

Jesus is the one who spoke the words of the Scripture above. He calls us to love God and to love others. This is His purpose for our life, and when we are willing to embrace it, we will be filled with the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Not only will we be filled, but we will also be a part of filling others.

It is a beautiful thing to “love others well by applauding their accomplishments and celebrating their skills.”

It is a beautiful thing to be loved by God, to love Him, and to love others.

 

Finding Hope in the Woman in the Mirror

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 3 Comments

FruitSpirit.Mirror.HS

I’ve struggled most of my life with looking in the mirror.
The woman I see staring back at me has usually not been the same woman I am.
The one staring back often feels as though she’s just not good enough.

Three years ago, my journey took a new turn. With that turn, part of me was lost, but part of me was also found. I had decisions to make and a path to walk. None of it would be easy. The reflection wasn’t friendly, but what was reflected became bigger than my own reflection.

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I wear make-up, and I like to wear make-up. My husband and boys tell me I don’t look much different without make-up as compared to what I look like when I do wear it. I disagree. The mirror seems to prefer mascara, eyeliner and lipstick.

The mirror tells me I’m a little “soft” and that I carry a few extra pounds;
the camera shows me that I’m squishy, and it’s more than just a few.

The mirror shows me that my skin is beginning to show its age;
my heart and my love of adventure don’t agree.

The mirror reveals the increase in my graying hair, my stray lip hair and the dark spots here and there from tanning way back when.

The mirror is like a friend who is brutally honest…you know…the one who tells you what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear.

The mirror shows me what is on the surface, but — if I stay to look long enough — it shows what is often hidden.

The mirror.

_______________

For Christmas this year, my husband surprised me with two wall decals. He got me the kind that press on, but are removable if one ever wants a change. One was small, and it went up right away, but the other one came in a big roll, and — since shortly after Christmas — it has laid on the floor in our library with a few soft stuffed animals pressing on it to make it flat. MANY times, he has asked me where I’d want it to be put on the wall, as he was VERY ready to stop stepping over it and get it up “for me.”

It was big. I just didn’t know where to put it. Most of the walls in our house are textured, so I just kept saying I didn’t want him to try to put it on a textured wall until I was sure I knew where I wanted it.

About a week ago, I told him I finally knew where I’d like it to be placed. When I told him the location, he questioned me multiple times. He was pleased that I had finally made up my mind, but he doubted the wisdom of my decision. Against his own preference, he decided to honor my wish, and he diligently pressed the letters onto the surface for me. We’re both in agreement now.

The photo you see above is where it now resides.

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In our master bathroom, there’s a folding, three-way mirror I designed and made when we renovated the room a few years ago. These wall decals now hang on the middle section of that mirror. They were a perfect fit, and I think they truly were meant to be there.

You see, the words now stuck on that mirror are the fruit of the Spirit. When I look into that mirror, what reflects back at me is not just me, but what He is leading me to be as I submit to being in step with the Spirit who resides in me.

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control;”
~excerpted from Galatians 5:22-23 of the NASB

In John, chapter 15 of the Bible, Jesus tells us He is the vine, and we are the branches. The branches grow from the vine and draw their life from the vine. The branches, then, have the ability to bear fruit. His fruit. Perhaps we’ll delve into this vine/branches/fruit topic more in the future, but for now, I want you to know something…

In Him, through Him, and because of my walk with Him, the woman I see staring back at me is becoming more like what He calls me to be.

I’m still a work in progress, but the seeds of His Spirit within me are sprouting and bearing His fruit.

I am struggling less with the mirror, as what is reflected is greater than just my own reflection.

 

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Finding Hope in the Weeds

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

The tomatoes in the garden are coming in. We’ve had a steady supply of these fresh, juicy fruits to eat in our household.

Although our snacking and salad harvest has been good, overall, it was not a good year for tomatoes in this part of the country. Much of the country suffers from summertime droughts, but that was not the case here. It was a cool and wet summer — not what tomato gardeners like. While we’ll still have plenty of tomatoes to eat, the harvest won’t be bountiful enough to freeze and can enough tomato soup, juice, fruit and sauces to get us through the winter.

In mid summer, I found a surprise in my tomato garden. After nearly two weeks of cool, wet weather, I spent a few hours weeding. Weeds love the wet weather, and my garden was full of them! In any case, my surprise was five tomato plants that I hadn’t planted. Fruit that had dropped last year, was tilled into the garden at the end of the season, survived a long winter of snow, made it through the soil being turned numerous times in the early spring, and had missed the May planting, was just starting to spring forth here in July.

I debated on whether or not to pull the plants with the other weeds. I knew it would be tough for them to bear fruit before the fall cold snap since they were so far behind, but I couldn’t bear to pull them out since they had, obviously, worked so hard on their own to survive.

I decided to give them a fighting chance.

Those five tomato plants have done pretty well. The fruit on their vines hasn’t ripened yet (it’s getting late), but there is fruit there waiting and hoping for a late-August heat wave to liven them up. I don’t know if it’ll happen (it might during the day, but it’s our nights that are too cool), but I still can’t bear to give up on them.

How many of us are like that? How many of us have been caught among the weeds with our possibilities going unnoticed? How many of us have survived through a dark season, been tossed and turned about, not been nurtured and cared for, yet we’re still able to bear fruit…good fruit? How many of us bear that fruit hoping that “they” won’t give up on us? How many of us just want a chance?

I know I do.

I’ve gone through seasons — just like you — I’d rather not talk about or share with others…seasons of ugliness I’d rather not remember.

But I’m still here. I’ve fought the weeds around me, and I’m still here.

Those five little tomato plants are still out there in my garden, too, trying to bear ripe fruit.

I’m thankful to those who have given me hope to hold on to along the way; those who have noticed that I’ve got something to offer despite the issues, flaws and imperfections; those who have helped me turn the problems and challenges into possibilities.

I’m going to give those five plants some more time. If their fruit doesn’t get around to ripening, there is always the fried-green-tomato option, right?

The challenges can always be possibilities.