I saw my first olive tree this fall, and it was different than I expected. The sign by the old tree identified it as an olive, but I looked and looked and only saw about five olives on one little branch. They were hard to see, but when I stopped to search, they indeed were there. They were healthy in color like jewels on the branch. The tree was established, well-rooted and standing just where it was meant to be.
Our apple tree at home is in full fruit-producing mode. It’s branches are heavy with apples, and some are even breaking off because of the weight. The leaves are damaged by the bugs and animals coming to eat the fruit. The apple tree looks rough and used up.
It makes me think about my heart. In my desire to max out the potential of every moment, is my heart looking like the apple tree?
Sometimes I find myself always in activity, constantly doing, until depleted and exhausted, I look and feel like the apple tree, losing limbs in the production of fruit…some good, but some wormy and bug-eaten.
When I find myself feeling this way, what can I do?
Sometimes I need to remember that my God can accomplish all He wants to without me, and what He tells me to do is to love Him with all my heart, mind, and strength. That causes me to stop and realign. I want the fruit of my life to look like those olives, gleaming and healthy. When I look into the eyes of my God, I would want Him to say, “Look how much you loved Me.”
That is a tree that will produce good fruit — the tree that is nourished by her Maker, rooted in truth and growing fruit…maybe not at the rate of an assembly line, but whose overflow will be healthy because her eyes are fixed on her God, abiding in Him.
I long to be the Olive tree.
