Thank you for this post. It was a very helpful reminder and encouragement. It is very easy just looking on a day to day basis (even on a year to year basis) for me to get very discouraged, at times, about the fruits of my labors. Your post inspired some thoughts about it.

When it comes to judging the fruits of my labors, at times I feel like a little kid who upon looking at an apple seed has the great dream of growing an apple tree and enjoying its fruit. With great expectations and anticipation I plant the seed and water it. Everyday I jump out of bed and excitedly run to see my apple tree–and my apples! Nothing. Someone explains to me that it takes time for seeds to sprout, so I wait. For days I wait and I see absolutely nothing. Unbeknownst to me all sorts of things are happening below the ground where I cannot see. Finally the day arrives when I see the first signs of life. Huh? That tiny green sprout is it? I begin to realize that this is going to take a little longer than I expected. I quit watching it everyday. Some days I even forget to water it. It grows into a little sapling. But where are my apples?! Finally someone tells me that an apple tree has to be 2 or 3 years old before you get any fruit from it. More waiting. Then one day I notice that the leaves are starting to turn brown. Oh, no! Did I underwater it? Overwater it? No, it is just that time of year. But all winter long I stare at a bare stick–wondering if it really is still alive. Spring comes and new leaves appear. Seasons come and go and each winter I wait to see if the leaves will appear again and every spring I wait for signs of fruit. Finally one year I see a beautiful flower. But there’s a late frost and the flower dies, leaving no fruit. The next year, two flowers appear and there is no frost. Finally my first apple! Some years the bugs eat all of the meager little fruit my tree produces. Some years there is abundance, other years there is barely anything. But every year, unseen by my eyes the roots of my tree are growing stronger and deeper.

The main thing I have learned from tending this tree is that most of what has occurred had very little to do with me. God is the creator of this amazing process and my job has been to tend it sometimes, keep my hands off of it sometimes–and wait. I have trouble doing all three of those things. I forget to take care of things I should, I get involved and try to do things when I shouldn’t and I HATE waiting. I still sometimes fight fear and panic waiting through the winter and summer when there is no sign of fruit–and through the years of drought, frost and pestilence when there is no fruit. But I’m beginning to see that God is at work in this process. Through rain and drought He is keeping my little tree alive, teaching me how to care for it, and teaching me that He is the judge of the fruit it produces–not me.

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 4:3-4