Lovely tree – shame about the fruit
The August bank holiday and the beginning of the new school year turn our thoughts wistfully to autumn, the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" as Keats so memorably describes it. Keats then fancies the autumn season conspiring with the sun to "fill all fruit with ripeness to the core".
Mellow fruitfulness, fruit ripened to the core - what a fantastic picture, also, of mature Christian character. The potential for fruit-bearing is in the tree, in its genetic code; but it is the sun that ripens the fruit. In the same way, Paul makes clear, the fruit of Christian character ripens under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Each tree produces fruit "according to its kind" (Gen. 1:12), and we produce the fruit of the Spirit according to our individual personalities. Love, joy, peace and so on must characterise us all, but how these virtues find their expression will vary according to the kind of people we are. God is not in the business of cloning his fruit trees but of nurturing each to produce its best (distinctive and idiosyncratic) fruit.
But it has to be exposed to the sun - the sun that, by an invisible process, will work with the tree's potential and from it bring forth fruit. In our earnest desire to do God's will, we may be inclined to strive too hard to manufacture the fruit on our own. The result is, inevitably, as futile as it would be to tie fruit onto the branches of a barren tree, as we tie baubles onto a Christmas tree. We have to give the Holy Spirit free rein in our lives, opening ourselves to allow him to deal, in his kind but firm way, with all that hinders the ripening of the fruit. We need to "go on being filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18) - pushing at the boundaries of our own self-reliance, to give him ever-increasing sway in our lives.
May this be for us all - in our personal, family and working lives - a season of delicious, mouth-watering fruitfulness.
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