The Precious Fruit of the Earth by Amber

For the past several weeks, I’ve had a scene return repeatedly to my mind.

It’s one that continues to stir me, inspire me, and simultaneously break my heart.

It’s that of an orange tree, gloriously laden full of fruit, nearly ripe, beautiful.

And yet, scattered around it on the ground are the fruits that fell away before it was ready.

I have this urgent cry in me, crying out that we stay on the tree until we are ripe.

This image was brought about from a conversation I had a couple weeks ago, fellowshipping about getting ready and what that meant.

It was shared that God’s timing is perfect, that He is looking for the precious “tree ripened” fruit of the earth, and He won’t harvest us until we are ripe, perfect, or in other words, mature.

Wow, I thought.

Of course that makes sense.

Tree ripened is by far the best, why would He settle for anything less, when we know the difference as well?

The next word shared was such a powerful, simple revelation:

To be tree ripened, we must stay on the tree.

I think in myself I have wondered before how we would get there; how would we manage to get all the way to that finishing line, ready, ripe?

And yet the answer is obvious:

STAY CONNECTED TO THE TREE OF LIFE, for life.

A fruit doesn’t grow itself. It doesn’t know the nutrients it needs. It just stays connected, and receives.

I was spurred by these topics to look up the process of fruit and how it forms.

A fruit tree sets on many blossoms and, once they are pollinated, they move on to the next stage in which fruit begins to set on.

During this stage of formation and development, the tree is delivering a rich cocktail of nutrients to progress the growth.

A fruit that stops receiving the nutrients halts and falls away.

The ones that survive this falling away and continue growing. Now they enter the next and final stages, which involves increased color, sweetening, and softening of the insides.

Only then, remaining on the tree for the fullness of time, is a fruit tree ripened.

This also spoke to me:

“Patience, and let patience have her perfect work, that we may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.”

Our faith may be tried, but yet let us remain on the tree until we receive that sweetness of the final stage.

We are all different fruits, but we are to be connected to the same tree.

When pestilence comes, the immune system delivers a response to fight it, because it’s not just a random branch.

That’s OUR branch, OUR hand, OUR foot. That’s who will fight for us when we need lifted up.

I see this clearer than before. Not to just hope an affected member gets better soon, and not to think it wouldn’t also affect me.

Because that’s my body too and infection can spread fast. Nothing is benign.

I also learned about grafting. How wild that is!

I had heard about it before, but it speaks new things to me.

Grafting is done because it is insured to produce the exact fruit you desire quicker and hardier than its seed counterpart.

Which, because its genetic makeup shares similarities to a human in terms of two genetic parents, is a gamble.

Sure, its DNA is the same in the course that indeed it will be AN apple.

But the genetic mixup means it will be a lottery in terms of which variety, known or unknown, might come through.

Starting from seed is further complicated by the fact that the tree may be enormous and the fruits small, bitter, or inedible altogether.

Because of this, grafting is almost exclusively done for the continuity of an orchard.

To graft, one selects a strong rootstock, often specialized for disease defense, desired flavor, and quality of fruit.

A compatible scion is picked next. This will be the top of the tree and variety of fruit grown.

A fresh cut is made in each, and they are banded and joined together. This provokes a healing response to grow around their injuries, creating a strong union bond that will remain for the rest of the tree’s life.

This grafting process can be done many times.

It can even be done with different fruits so long as they belong to the same family. There even exists a “Tree of 40 fruits”, with all kinds of stone fruit varieties.

It spoke to me how the body of Christ is like this, and whosoever will yield themselves will be grafted in, one body and one tree, in Christ.