Fruit by the Fathom

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.--Hebrews 13:15

I have prayed recently that I would see the fruit of my prayers manifested in small ways, that my heart might be encouraged. Several days this week, God has shown me a garden of people who have been nourished by His words over them through me, and I was delighted.  The fruit of our prayers is made manifest every day; we just seldom stop and look for it. 

I would like my life to be like a beautiful garden where other people can grow and be nourished by His word.

"With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."—Mark 4:30-32

God has lately been teaching me about how His word grows fruit.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.—Isaiah 55:10-11

What an awesome promise that is. This has always been one of my favorite verses because it emphasizes the creative power of God’s word.

After my hop to Isaiah 55 the other morning, I skipped over to Isaiah 58, which speaks of the result of believing His word and deciding to follow it:

…if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.—verses 10-11

I don’t know about you, but to me, “pouring yourself out” indicates that you will become empty. But this verse says you will be like a spring of water that never runs dry, a garden that never lacks rain. This is because the thing you’re pouring out isn’t everything you have to give; it’s something that comes directly from God. He gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:7). His word in us accomplishes what He purposes.

Not only do we have access to His word in the scriptures, we can also hear directly from Him if we have the Holy Spirit living in us. If we abide in His word, as Jesus said (John 15:7), it can continually be creating beautiful things in us.

Confession: I struggle to listen to God and allow myself to be nourished by the word He has for me. I am a chronic multi-tasker with an overactive mind and body. This combo pretty much wrecks my ability to focus on any one particular thing without trying very hard; you can forget about sitting still. (If you’ve ever sat next to me, you know this…sorry.) But the other day, I was patiently listening to someone speak because I knew God wanted me to listen. This verse came to mind: “…for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). It stands to reason: if you can’t listen to your brother whom you have seen, how can you listen to God whom you have not seen?

Ouch.

Listening to other people is hard enough, because I can actually look into their eyes. I start trying to listen to God, and next thing you know, I’m distracted by my laundry or my breakfast dishes. Talk about settling for less than His best.

As I was praying about that this morning, I got an image of one of my more difficult students. I have a lot of super-relational children. They are hooked on the care and attention of others. So when I go and pick them up, they have to tell me everything about their day—and I listen, even though I have a thousand other things to do, and what they’re telling me is really small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

I think God listens to us like that. I think I long for His attention so much that I begin to chatter on about things that are unimportant, and He just patiently waits for a chance to get a word in edgewise.

Just as I want to nourish and shape my children by my words, God seeks to tell us things that build us up and mold us for our good. See, unlike our words, which are basically meaningless, even destructive, apart from Him, God’s words are always good, and always fill us up, sprinkling our garden with water so that we may grow up to be beautiful.

Unfortunately, too often I react to God like my students react to me. I understand, vaguely, that He cares for me and that His words are good for me; however, my immediate desire is to take my shoes off, be distracted by His other children, complain about being hungry, slouch in my chair, and chatter on and on about Pop Tarts instead of listening to what He has to say. (True life elementary school situations.)

I have one particular student who is always driven to finish all the tasks we agree to do during our session; he always says, “Can we just skip this? Can we go ahead? I want to get finished!” Like him, I can see the vision, the end result, and I just want to move ahead. But, ironically, in order to move ahead and be able to accomplish the vision, I have to sit still and listen to His instruction. Like this student, I prefer to interrupt my own lesson (even though I am the one who wants to finish) to ask irrelevant questions and demand candy for no reason. (Yes, this really happens in real life.)

But I think God wanted to show me that image of my students not to emphasize how bad I am at listening, but how delighted He is with me when I do. The sheer pleasure I feel when these little ones turn their eyes to me, receive the instructions I give, and absorb information from my mouth is a feeling that is hard to beat. If you are a teacher, you know what I mean. God wants me to know that this is how He feels when I quiet myself long enough to receive what I know is good for me, to be nourished so that I can grow.

The original sin of Adam and Eve is that they did not listen to God—they listened to a liar. The liar told them that God was not trustworthy, and they ought to ingest the fruit of the tree of life. You see, we should not be grabbing this fruit and stuffing ourselves with it; we are meant to produce the fruit, in a metaphorical sense. And problems always occur when we stop listening to God’s voice and believing what He says, and start listening to a lying imposter, who has crept into the wondrous garden that God created with His words. Adam and Eve tried to do things backwards. (It’s a common problem for humanity.) We want to eat the fruit instead of receiving the water that makes it grow from our own branches so that others may share in it.

In Colossians 1:6, Paul speaks of the hope we have in the gospel. “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth…”

The word bears fruit, guys. Let’s receive it, so that we can speak it, and so that it can go forth and create a garden of the whole world.