April 11th
Read: Genesis 8:22; Proverbs 11:30; John 15:1-3
At any season a fruit tree is a promise of things to come. Each season brings a different manifestation of its life cycle. Take my apple tree as an example. Its springtime dress represents its youth, a time when beauty covers it and bees are an outside influence upon it. Its summer days see it coming to maturity with fruit growing on each branch. It becomes a shelter for robins and a shade for the traveler. The fruit is seen maturing, but the branches hold themselves high. Once the apples are fully grown and ripe, they pull the fruitful branches lower so that they can be more easily reached. The tree submits again to outside influence in the harvest. When it casts its leaves to winter winds, it looks dead, but God’s LIFE, which has flowed through it all along is still there!
In my apple tree I see the human being in his youth, lithe and beautiful; in his mid-life maturity, showing the beginnings of fruit; in his later very fruitful years, growing and bending his life to allow others to share what he has to offer; and in his dying, where life is not seen on the surface but flows out for eternity. In the believer the dying still holds God’s LIFE within! What seems dead is resurrected in Christ. In each season there is a promise of things to come.
MY APPLE TREE
My apple tree, my apple tree,
‘Tis many wondrous things to me.
In spring, ’tis drift of blushing cloud
With birds and buzzing bees endowed.
Then, as it passes into green
And growth of tiny fruit is seen,
There under branches bending low
The lazy summer moments flow.
There in sun-flecked, dapple shade
My daily stresses seem to fade.
Its rosy globes with sweetness fill
Until the autumn breezes chill,
And garnering its fragrant store
Becomes my favorite harvest chore.
Then, as it stands bereft and bare
And snow is drifted everywhere,
My apple tree, my apple tree
Breathes promises of spring to me.
Prayer: Dear God, I thank You for each cycle of my life. Help me to bear much fruit and to be reachable to those who seek feeding.