I have a couple trees in pots. I bought a few of them a few years ago and a few of them a few more years ago.
Ok, maybe I have more than just "a couple" trees in pots. The cherry and apricot stubbornly sent roots out the bottom of their nursery buckets, refusing to be delayed in the planting process. The Asian pear is tiny and has obediently stayed in it's pot, faithfully giving as many little round pieces of fruit as it's tiny limbs can bear. The peach tree is trapped in a barrel with no holes to send rebel roots out of, and so is the pear.
I'm saving them for when we buy land, so they can put down roots where we put down roots.
Last year the pear tree put out a whole lot of little odd-shaped nubs that looked so promising. The tree is just a bit over my head, and it was SO exciting to think of all the pears we would soon be slurping over our lunch plates! But just a few weeks in to growth something happened, and the tree shed every last one. No pears.
I don't know if the roots had suddenly grown into the sides of the barrel, or if the chemistry of the whole operation wasn't right, or if a storm blew on it too hard, but the slurpy pears would have to be waited for.
This year that happy little pear tree is growing exactly ONE pear.
I've been thinking about all my trapped trees, anxiously waiting to put down roots and GROW and BEAR FRUIT. I've been thinking about the areas of my life that feel like they, too, are anxious to put down roots and grow and bear fruit. The wait has been longer than I thought.
Goodness, I have to water and care for those little patient trees to keep them alive and healthy, even though it's not time for them to grow to full size and give away what they were meant to bless us with. I have to tend and care for and water the places of my life and heart that are also waiting, to keep those corners and chunks of my heart and life ALIVE and HEALTHY while I wait.
Sometimes it is tempting to stop watering the areas that are not yet bearing fruit. It's so easy to take the Lord's "not yet" and apply it not just to the growth and the bearing of fruit, but also to the FAITHFULNESS needed between now and then.
When the Lord says "not yet", He is not saying "give up and stop watering".
He is saying, "Be faithful."
"In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and his children will have a place of refuge."
Proverbs 14:26
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