Here is a little devotional written on September 22, 2023. This digital journal entry resurfaced almost a full year later, timely as ever. I wrote this during my stay at “the Lemon Tree House,” in Vrachati, Greece. The same time that I originally launched this blogging platform.
I hope this reflection blesses you in Christ, and that you know that you truly are, a child of God, who bears fruit in and out of season.
limes? oh wait, lemons.
I am trying to put into words the revelation that I had today. As I sat at the kitchen table gazing out the window, I noticed that hanging proudly on the lower branches of the tree in the backyard was a bright yellow lemon.
I was so excited to see that little guy shining bright amongst its green siblings who have not yet ripened to its bright yellow-ready-to-be-picked self. Jumping up, I went to go investigate this ready to pluck lemon. And to my dismay, the back of it was all brown and it looked so gross in the back I did not want to pluck that, even though I know the insides are probably fine… I looked up all around the tree and still, out of the hundred of lemons, only a few bear the yellow coat while the rest could be mistaken as limes since they are so green.
Basically, where my thoughts were going in the Spirit later that afternoon was that we never witness fruit that isn’t ripe. We always see fruit that is ripened and freshly picked. We never acknowledge the out-of-season stage that takes months for most species to develop into the beautiful harvestable crop.
We know nothing of the permission given to us by our Creator to be out of season. We speak of the seasons that we are in as something to be eaten but what if the seasons we are mostly meant to take hold of was the out of season state of a slowly developing like lemon on a tree in the backyard of a Greek house in a tiny village the world has never heard of? And what of this lemon tree? At the first meeting, especially of someone who has never met a lemon tree, I knew this tree to be but the birther of lemons! To my shock that lemons before they are ready to be consumed resemble that of a lime.
Have we expected of ourselves to always be in season? Freshly plucked? Read to eat?
Well, the Word says to be ready in and out of season, to keep in step with bearing fruit, but what if this whole time we were thinking of ourselves as the tree being grown? For myself to always be in season? For me to always be the creator of the fruits of the Spirit? This whole time I have thought that I was the lemon tree demanding that I keep up with the production of always in seasons lemons, when the whole time I was looking at the wrong tree.
Scripture describes metaphorically if we are planted in the Word of God we will be like a tree, planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in season. John 15 relays the words of Jesus: to abide, to abide in the vine. That I am yet a branch of this vine. And as long as I abide in Him, He will abide in me, bearing fruit. Here’s the reality check, the entire time I have been holding myself to be this tree that bears all this delicious, perfectly ripened yellow lemons to be feasted upon whenever.
The reality is, I have been looking at the wrong tree. I need to be planted in Christ who is THE tree, THE vine, the Fruit, for He is love–and if I am meant to keep in step with bearing love, I can only do that by ABIDING in the vine, by holding fast unto the Tree that is He. I may only be able to bear fruit in my “own strength,” and even that I have to question if that’s even possible to say, but even in my own strength, the fruit I bear is but a small bowl that will last maybe a few days.
No, I must go to Him who bears fruit day and night, night and day, forever and ever–He is not limited to times and seasons, I am. He created the times and seasons to help guide and lead humanity in dependance of Him, to have permission to process, to grow, to wait, and simply to be.
Today, I rediscovered that I truly am a child of God.
And he never expected me to be the Well of Love, He never expected me to bear lemons all year long, He just meant for me to come and take and eat His Fruit, oh His Love. I am fully and utterly dependant of Father God. He is my Provider, my Sustainer, my Life Giver, my Fruit Giver. The Best Farmer and Gardener this world has ever known, the best Dad, the best Father. I love you so much Lord.
Thank you for giving Your children permission in this life–in every season–even today, right now, we have permission to be. Thank goodness my gifts won’t waste away. Thank goodness my gifts aren’t dependent on me. Thank goodness Your Spirit won’t ever leave me nor forsake me. Thank goodness Your Spirit is at work in me, it is not limited to the jobs I take, the spaces I occupy, or the places I live.
Oh how silly I am, to measure my worth, my gifting, what I offer to the Kingdom of God–oh how silly I am to think that I can uphold the calling and purpose God has on my life. HE is the one who holds everything together, not me? Oh how silly of me, how me of little faith to think that any of this had anything to do with me at all> my idea> my plans> my ways? Oh goodness, it is the Lord’s ideas, His plans, His routes.
In Christ,
Cosette
