Preparing a Place for the Fruit

When I was a kid, I grew up in the Silicon Valley of California before the high tech companies arrived. Our valley was a continuous expanse of fruit orchards. My first real job was at age 9 picking prunes. 

The ease of picking prunes would depend on how the orchardist prepared the orchard floor for the falling fruit. If the orchard floor was well-groomed and flat it was easy to gather up the prunes and fill the wooden boxes. I was paid .35 cents per box. If an orchardist did not prepare his orchard floor a picker would have to push aside the weeds to get to a single prune. Working in an unprepared orchard made it difficult and time-consuming to fill a box. I watched my Mexican friends who came to work the orchards. They were wise. They only worked for orchardists who rightly prepared the orchard floor for the time of harvest.

As this memory came to mind, I thought of our lives. Our life is like an orchard floor. We can prepare for the arrival of the fruit of God’s presence or we can neglect the preparation because we grew impatient with the process. When the time comes for the fruit to fall it can disappear into the weedy frustrations of life or a lack of discipline that crept in when we dismissed the possibility of something good coming our way. 

Today, God has planned to deliver the beautiful fruit of His presence onto the soil of your life. In faith, prepare for its arrival. Pull the weeds of disbelief. Smooth over the rough edges of a negative attitude. Offer God a prepared place for the fruit to land. The fruit is not just for you. It is for all who will enter the orchard of your life to pick the fruit and taste the goodness of God. Make it easy for them to take part in the harvest.