Unexpected Fruit

When strolling around my garden I came upon this unexpected treasure!

Although I love butternut squash, I did not plant these little beauties but their seeds spilled out when I was harvesting my compost to dress my garden.

Unbeknownst to me the seeds germinated and began to take root and produce a vine.

I saw the vine growing and tended to it wondering all the while if it was a going to produce an inedible gourd.

To my surprise these butternut squash started growing where I wasn't expecting them to grow using the nutrients that I had not intentionally laid down, being replenished by the consistent rain that allowed my water bill to remain manageable.

I thought of how when our hearts are fertile soil for the word of God, and we have tilled the ground, often times there are attributes that grow in our lives that we never tended to because we are a well watered garden before the Lord.

Patience was never my virtue as a wife and mother and although I had fun with my children, when they were little I often did not seem to possess that fruit of the Spirit.

I would be irritated by constant noise and commotion that distracted my thoughts and prevented me from accomplishing the tasks that I was set out to accomplish.

While driving I would always seems to be in a hurry and get easily frustrated while on my way even with my children in the car.

Over the past several years, I have come to rest in my surroundings even when the noise level is high or my attention is demanded.  Not perfectly of course but people began to tell me I was patient.

They began to notice this fruit in my life that I could not plant there but seemingly sprouted from the debris pile of my life.

Had I prayed for patience?  Yes!  Had I been challenged due to those prayers?  Absolutely!  Was the process to the fruit evident?  I can't say that it was.

I realized that as we seek after God and His ways and ask Him to do a work in us, often times there are things produced in our lives that we weren't a part of!

Galatians 5:22-24

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self- control; against such things there is not law.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

As we keep in step with the Spirit, we will not give way to what our flesh wants.

When we see that we fall very short from the list in Galatians, we need to take it to the Lord and ask Him to produce that fruit in our lives.

The Lord delights to reveal His glory to us because it causes us to worship and adore Him!

Just like God anointed Cyrus for his life's work to subdue nations, loose the belts of kings, open doors and close gates, the Lord will go before us and prepare the way for His 7 fold Spirit to be manifest in our lives.

He will remove the things that are hindering us from walking in humility and love and He says;

Isaiah 45:3

I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel , who call you by your name.  

He goes on to say on Isaiah 45:5

I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God;  I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me;  I am the LORD, and there is no other.

verse 8

"Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit;  let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it.

So in our pursuit of God, as we allow Him to drag out the rotteness of our compost pile hearts, we will be surprised at the rich treasures that He has in store for our lives.  It is HIS doing not our own.

He not only plants but uses the refuse of our lives as the very ground in which to germinate the very things that we are lacking and He does it in a way where we are surprised by what He has done all so that we and all people will know that He alone is God and that He has called us by our names and He has equipped us for greater works!

Oh I am so thankful for Your husbandry over my life today Abba!  That it is You who have laid low and dug deep into the fallow ground of my heart and poured out the decaying flesh that is being sacrificed for You and used it to sprout new things in my character that I thought could never grow!

You amaze me!  Help us to not tuck our rottenness away from You deep inside the compost bin of our hearts but give us the grace we need to allowYou, with Your pitchfork, to spread it all out in order to be used as the fertilizer for new fruits in our lives.

And last but certainly not least, let the earth of our hearts open up to the reign of Your righteousness in our lives that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit and sprout so that You are glorified in our lives and all will know that You alone are God!