Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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Faith Comes By Hearing...Not Heard It Once and Now You're Good-to-go
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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Comments (5)
i understand where you're coming from--i always absolve to read my bible everyday and despite my best attempts, it never comes to pass...i gotta do better!
When I begin to take my relationship with my Heavenly Father for granted, both my spirit and my emotions begin to shut down. I heard a great quote one time that has always proven true for me at such times.
“I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns.”
Our responsibility is to keep abiding (see John 15) and it is God's job is to grow the fruit in us.
Psalm 1 is talking about taking time to be in the Word, as in reading the Bible/doing Bible study, etc., but more than that, about our abiding in Christ Himself. He needs to consume our whole lives. He needs to fill our vision 24/7. It isn't just about doing a set quiet time each day with God and then getting on with our business. We need to sit with Him, listen to Him, pray to Him, meditate on Him and so on. We should thirsting for God (Psalm 42).
We need to be faithful where we're at. We often want something to happen but God is waiting for us to be faithful in the small things. We are not to despise the day of small things.
We look for the flashy, showy fruit, and get discouraged when we don't see it. We forget the greatest fruit God wants to grow in us is an increasing resemblance to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not really about what we do, it's about who we're becoming. And God has promised that His desire for us is to conform us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29) and He will complete the work He began (Phil. 1:6).
I like reading through passages like Isaiah 54 about the barren woman (Israel) and other accounts of dead wombs/barrenness/dead ends in the Bible. For there we see God work miracles: new life comes from deadness, streams spring up in the desert, etc. and then I remember my God has the same power to bring a harvest of fruit when I least expect it. Impossible with man, possible with God.
Habakkuk 3:17-19.
You are seeking when you share this. Sometimes, I get so caught up in busyiness that I don't see or ask God to open my eyes to what He is doing around me. Sometimes, we are having fruit produced down the road as others watch our example in being faithful when we don't think anything is happening. A kind word to a stranger or helping somebody we don't know can encourage them in ways we don't know. Our faithfulness is important even if we don't see fruit with our own human eyes.
Your blog makes an excellent point of what we are feeding ourselves too! What a gentle encouragement of truth of what we do put into our mind/heart/soul/body does come out! The Word of God in generous helpings will not return void!!! Yet, filling it up with hours of TV....how much time we can waste and shape our thoughts in ways we don't know. Yes, I watch TV but at times prompted to turn it off and do something better. Yet, do I ignore that prompting or do it. It is my loss when I don't and I know I will miss out on fruit!
We could hours back and forth about this, yet it comes back down to our choices we are able to make with the freewill God gives us to chose.
Thank you for your illustration with your plant. We learn in similiar ways with God using what is in our life to teach us! Thank you for encouraging me!
Yes I am. I try not to be dormant but I get tired, lazy or I let fear paralyze me. But i had to rebuke the devil. I mean I've been reading my bible and praying but I haven't been willing to do what God has been calling me to do. Lord I pray that You help me to do Your will. That I get out of this spirit of complacency and I do what it is that I need to do. I once saw somewhere, " To have what you've never had, you must do what you have never done."