The Pecan Tree and the Fig Tree
I love pecans! I love to scour the ground searching for them; the excitement when I find an area overflowing with them; pouring them into my bucket until it is filled to the rim; and sitting at the table eating them as quickly as I can separate them from their cracked shell.
This love comes from childhood memories of family spending time together under my grandfather's pecan tree searching for the tiny nuts. The timing in the fall provided a much needed slight chill in the air after a long hot summer in the South. The air, fresh and invigorating, provided energy to our search. Throughout our rummaging, we would pause to compare our buckets, competing to be the first to fill our bucket.
As an adult, I still love all aspects of the pecan search. Each fall, I ask those that I know have a pecan tree for permission to search for these hearty nuts finding that only select years produced a hearty crop. I remember the pecan search as happening each year but apparently pecan trees do not produce plentiful fruit every year.
"For a pecan tree to grow vigorously enough in the spring to produce the leaves and flowers it needs for a good harvest, it must carry enough assimilated food reserves over the winter to support its first flush of growth. For that reason, anything that interferes with a tree's ability to produce and store nutrient elements, carbohydrates, etc., also interferes with its ability to produce nuts."
Are we like pecan trees?
In order for us to produce a hearty crop, must we carry
enough assimilated food reserves over the winter?
What is our assimilated food?
Does this mean that we produce the assimilated
food that we reserve?
If this is even partly true, we must be careful to receive food that produces a healthy overall product. This refers to everything that we take in and everything that we do.
Examine the things that you take in: the positive or negative messages you receive from TV, movies, social media, friends, your workplace, language, God's word. What are you filling yourself with?
"You are what you take in!
Examine the things that you do: charitable work, help others, kind words, prayer, or do your actions produce negative connotations.
What you do affects what you produce!
Therefore, it is essential that you censure what you take in and what you do. Think of the things that you want to produce and what you must take in and do to achieve this.
The Bible contains a story about a fig tree:
Luke 13:6-9
... “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
I don't want to be cut down!
I want to produce a hearty crop every year!
I want my assimilated food to harvest positive results!
DO YOU?