It is a great fruit year here in Northwest Montana. We have had an abundance of strawberries and raspberries and the favorite of many people in our “neck of the woods,” huckleberries (or wild blueberries) are very plentiful.  Our family enjoys searching for good huckleberry patches and this year they are found in many places and the bushes are really loaded. Interestingly, they are one of the first forms of vegetation to help restore an area after a fire has swept through and left bare ground and ashes in its wake.  Such was the case of a place where we picked with our daughter and son who came to visit for a few days. The area had been quite devastated by a forest fire just a few years ago. It was the first time we had gone there after the fire and it was exciting to see the once barren ground now covered with some of the “pioneer” species which begin the restoration process. It may begin with only lowly mosses, lichens and mushrooms and then ferns, wild flowers such as “fireweed,” and often huckleberry bushes.  Since, in the wisdom of God in His design of the plant world, “nature will not tolerate a vacuum.” He designed such that a restoration process takes place to where gradually there will again be mature, majestic long-lived trees. 

     It is also interesting that some conifer tree species  (such as lodgepole pine, certain cypress trees and the giant Sequoias) require fire or intense heat to melt the resin that seals the cone scales, allowing them to open and release the seeds. They are known as “serotinous” species. Since fire in the Bible is often acquainted with God’s judgment, we see that it is through the “fires of judgment” that these trees are able to reproduce. God also uses chastening in the lives of believers to enable them to bear more fruit and to reproduce.  The author of the book of Hebrews talks about how God “disciplines us for our good, that we might share His holiness” (12:10). And even though “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (v. 12).     Jesus used the analogy of a vine and  branches, where He is the vine and we (believers) are the branches, and God the Father is the “vinedresser” (gardener) who prunes the branches so they will bear more fruit. The pruning process may be painful but its purpose is to increase fruitfulness. Jesus exhorts His disciples (and us), saying: “…he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5).  To “bear fruit” means to “support ” fruit. The vine produces the fruit; the branches merely support the fruit by staying connected to the vine. God is glorified when we “bear much fruit, and so prove to be His disciples (v. 8).  

     Trees and plants don’t “grow themselves,” but grow as they respond to the environment in which they are placed. As Christians, we don’t “grow ourselves” either, but respond to the environment in which God has placed us (His Word, fellow Christians, our circumstances and our church fellowship). It is God’s purpose for each of us in His Church that we “bear much fruit” and reproduce. Sometimes that requires the heat of adversity and chastisement; sometimes it requires a severe “pruning.”  But, it is all that we might be fruitful for Him.  So, what kind of “fruit season” are you experiencing?  Our job is to abide in Him and He will produce the fruit. So, sink your roots firmly into Him (Col. 2:6,7) and spend time reading, studying, meditating on, memorizing, and living out His word (II Tim. 2:15). 

Forever His,

Pastor Dave N