Wednesday, 10 September 2008

• Faith Comes By Hearing...Not Heard It Once and Now You're Good-to-go

   by miss goldenrod

  

  He shall be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither.  Psalm 1:3, Amp.

  Any scripture referencing plants has a built-in highlighter to my eye, and yet as many times as I've seen this one, I never really saw the part I needed to see.  The verse doesn't say the tree bears fruit constantly, or when it wants to, but "in its season."  Production-lulls are good; it is then a plant builds an energy reserve to initiate and then support the fruit-bearing season.  Year-round production would cause a plant to become weak and unable to resist disease and attacks.

  I first thought this applied to me, but then again, I don't see evidence in my life of a "production-lull."   I think I'm in more of a dormant-period; you know...fallen-leaves, cold roots.  Well, as God usually does, he held up one of my plants as a mirror.  

  I've had an orchid for 15 months: healthy, but flowerless.  I know it has the potential to bloom...or so I'm hoping...but I know it also isn't being all that it was created to be. 

  I've been waiting impatiently for something, anything, to happen in my life.  That impatience might have tempted me to make something happen, but I'm not taking a trip down that bunny-trail again.  All the same, with not even a sign of "flowers forming on my branches," I'm thinking that I'm not doing anything productive.

  And perhaps I haven't.  One of the reasons I think my orchid hasn't bloomed is because I potted it in not-so-great bark and then never fed it.  Without a proper food-source it isn't about to form a flower-spike.  Likewise, what makes me think that reading the Bible once was enough to carry me through my years?  Jesse Duplantis said something that has stuck with me: "the verse reads, 'Faith comes by hearing'...not 'heard it once and now you're good-to-go.'" 

  Maybe when I get myself to a point where I'm consistently reading the Word, then I'll begin "producing fruit."  Then I'll get to deal with, "in its season."

  Have you struggled or are you struggling with a season of dormancy? How did/do you get out?

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