The Pear Tree

When my daughter was young, we lived on a small quiet farm that was nothing more that a house and some overfull storage barns on about seventy acres of land. The tiny white house stood back from a busy highway the length of a football field. After moving in, I noticed an apple tree at the head of our lane by the road and towering pear tree by the house. I was told that neither of them bore good fruit and not to bother with the it. I was shown a pear that was grainy, small, and hard as a rock. I wasn’t a fan of pears to begin with so leaving them alone sounded simple enough.

The following year, spring came early. The farmer renting the field next to our house planted early, just ahead of a season of record rainfall. It was so quiet there that after the rains, we’d sit on the back porch swing and listen to the corn grow. That year, the stalks grew to be over eight feet tall.

The community hadn’t seen so much rain in years. At the end of summer, the apple tree was loaded with fruit as was the pear tree. But, all of the apples were misshapen, black spotted, and small.

The pear tree, however, bore fruit the size of a linebacker’s fist. The pears were sweet and juicy and did I mention… HUGE? We made pear sauce, pear ketchup, pear fruit-leather and even pear vinegar. We ate and shared and sold pears. The elderly landlord of the property who had grown up in the house had never seen pears that size in his whole life. And, I became a lover of pears.

What does this mean for you?

There’s a verse in the B’rit Chadasha that says “If you make a tree good, its fruit will be good; and if you make a tree bad, its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.” -Mattityahu 12:33

A tree that produced bad fruit and always produces bad fruit is a bad tree. In the case of our pear tree, it was a good tree but it wasn’t getting what it needed to produce good fruit. Some of us are like that pear tree, biding our time, hoping for the rains to come. People may have said negative things like, we’re small, and hard and not worth bothering with, when really all we need is the right amount of rain; like shots of encouragement, cooperation, or sustained positivity.

But, unlike trees with roots that prevent them from moving from their environment, we can go find “the rain” we need to thrive and produce good fruit. So where are you? Is there enough rain where you are? Are you bearing good fruit? If not, what steps will you take to get “the rain” you need?

Share your thoughts in the comments below. We look forward to seeing you next time!