By Their Lemons shall you know them…

3 years ago you probably would not have found me talking about symbolism and things like that, but then 3 years ago you would not have found me talking about many spiritual things at all.

Spiritually, I think I was almost dead at that time, having gone through an eight year desert experience after Bible College & struggling with the mega church mentality where I worshiped. I was at the point where I nearly turned my back on the whole Christianity thing…

At the same time I did some pruning under the expert guidance of Don Burke; we had a dismal lemon tree out the back, that was diseased, and essentially growing no fruit. One Saturday Night, Don said the only way to deal with this problem was to ruthlessly cut back the lemon tree, so much so that only the trunk and major branches were still intact… remove all signs of life from the tree and just let it do its thing…

So we did.

For the next year it looked like someone had stuck a stick in the dirt, as our tree sat there to all the world dead…

Finally, miraculously, some shoots started to appear…

& the kids hacked them off with a stick …

But the lemon tree was not deterred, and a year later the shoots started to grow again… until it had lush foliage… A few months ago we noticed some flowers and finally little green fruit.

Today it is covered in bright yellow lemons, & we now get to enjoy the sweet lemony goodness of the fruit.

Ok, so maybe the whole spiritual fruit analogy thing does not work well with lemons – maybe if it was apples or oranges the story could have worked a lot better, but then the story would not have been true – however it is interesting how much of a symbol the lemon tree has been to Naomi and myself of our spiritual journey over the last 3 years. At the point in our life where we are ready to move on to follow Gods call, our lemon tree is as healthy and fruitful as it has ever been.

I know that when Jesus talked about fruit, he was talking about outward signs of a true spirituality, & I don’t know, maybe I have those… I guess that’s not up to me to decide.

However, I feel the fruit in my own life, the result of His love and patience, it is not the result of anything I did, I was near dead & he pruned me back… to the world I looked like a dry stick, but his tough love and nurture have seen new life spring up in me. There have been things that have hacked off this new life – attacks and trials, but he has persisted with me… And that is why I must follow where he leads, I owe him everything, & I thank him for allowing me to be used by him.

Ironically, when we move out, my parents are planning on doing an extension that will result in the death of our tree, but we will not let that affect my little analogy.

Peter