It’s a glorious day when we’re able to taste the sweetness of something we’ve been in long pursuit of. The investment and sacrifices finally bring forth a prize worth waiting for. A dream in your heart that manifests before your eyes: a ribbon-cutting for a business that, until now, you’d only seen in your dreams; the sold sign on the cabin overlooking the lake; a graduate proudly holding their diploma; a book hot off the press with your name on it.
We invest into many things every day; our job, business, marriage, raising children, relationships, ministry, etc.
“One day we will live in the fruit of these moments.” -Kim Walker-Smith
This truth gives us the endurance to persevere, so we can make it to make that glorious day.
In Galatians 6:9 scripture says, “Do not grow weary in doing good because at the right time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
But what about now? What happens in the time between the sowing and the reaping?
If we’re not careful we can get so focused on the work of sowing and on the future harvest (the dream), that we don’t enjoy the fruit available to us in our current season. We can take it for granted without even realizing it’s there.
When I see the dream manifest, I don’t want to have missed enjoying the fruit in each season that passed along the way. We have four children: 12, 10, 5, and 1. Let me give you a peek into our living room around bedtime.
As we’re having a little bible study before bed our oldest boys are riled up. I’m witnessing them roll off the couch, passing gas, picking their noses and trying to refrain from potty talk. I wonder if they actually remember anything we’re teaching, or if they only remember my voice through gritted teeth as I threaten them with the “or else”.
I’m not usually left feeling confident in the effectiveness of our bible study time, but I do find that if I’m attentive the evidence is there. For example, a few weeks ago I hopped into the shower to find that my son, who had been in the shower before me, had taken my daughter’s foam letters, that are a usual random art in our shower, and spelled out “God, Jesus Christ”.
I was so proud I took a picture!
And notice how he had to go out of his way for those extra Ss he needed! A 10-year-old boy has many things he could have chosen to spell out in the shower that morning… pee, poop, fart… I mean, I was proud!
Fruit, right there in my shower! I ate that up. I need to eat those pieces of fruit along the way because I need sustenance for the next time I’m tempted to run out of my house like a crazy person screaming, “I’m done, I’m done, I’m done!”
Or the next time I’m sitting in church and the family next to us has their five children lined up nicely, sitting upright, with matching clothes, looking straight ahead with their hands in their laps, while I’m pinching my kids with the gritted teeth smile telling them to sit up straight and stop arguing.
In these kinds of moments, I choose to believe that their children aren’t perfect, and surely, they can’t behave that well all the time. I have to believe that. What else am I going to do? Get all worked up, mad at my kids, question my parenting and feel horrible about myself? No thank you.
Comparison is a fruit bandit.
If you want a great place to have a pity party and feel terrible about yourself or your kids, just go to www.facebook.com. Have you heard of it?
I’m not a Facebook hater, I’m a user. But here’s what we do. We post our highlights and share them with the world. Now I don’t know about you, but I have yet to post a selfie I’ve taken of myself losing it with my kids or arguing with my husband. Or taken an exquisite shot of the perfectly strewn toys, dirty clothes, shoes, food, you name it, all over our house.
So, here’s what happens. We hop on Facebook and it doesn’t take long before we see a beautiful picture of an old friend on vacation; beachside with her bare feet pointed toward the perfect blue sea with her kids in the back drop kindly working together building a sand castle. Or the perfect family photo that you gave up on years ago. Or the smiles from what seem to be the perfect family outing while you’re having flashbacks of your family picnic the day before that was not so Facebook worthy.
My whole point being, if we are going to take other’s highlights and compare them with our seemingly mundane, we are not being kind to ourselves.
Let’s look at another fruit bandit.
The Crazy.
What is wrapped up in your crazy? What keeps you moving all day? Does your week feel like a whirlwind at times? Your year? Your decade?
I like looking back at pictures because sometimes I have a hard time remembering seasons passed. What was it like when my, now 12-year-old, started to walk? Could I remember the last time I scooped him up and put him on my hip?
Within the countless times I rise in the morning and put my head on my pillow at night am I enjoying the fruit available to me that day? Amongst work, appointments, sports, volunteering, and other commitments, is there white on my calendar? Are there dates with my husband and children?
Most everything that pulls at us throughout our day are things we’re grateful for. Our home needs cleaning and order, our kids need care and attention, our job needs our time and effort, our husband needs care and satisfaction in our marriage, our friendships need investment, our family needs our attention, and our commitments need our follow through.
While we’re grateful for our home, kids, job, husband, friends, and family, they all require our attention and are asking things of us daily. If we’re not intentional, we’ll move through each day focused on satisfying these needs and not enjoying any of them.
Do I really have to do the dishes before I can sit and do a puzzle with my son or play barbies with my daughter. Does that meeting really need to take precedence over a long overdue date with my husband?
I don’t want to allow the crazy to steal the fruit from my season. There’s no escaping the crazy, but it’s loaded with abundant fruit. We just need to be still within ourselves, even as the crazy circles around us, and gain perspective.
If all the fruit in our current season is covered with weeds and thorns from comparison, the unchecked crazy, complaining, and discontentment, we are going to miss out on enjoying the most precious times of life.
Those dreams and hopes we have in our hearts for the future are important to the Lord, he most likely is the One who gave them to us. Let’s keep our eyes on Him and let Him lead us. He knows the best route to those dreams.
What we can’t do is zoom focus on the future itself. If we do that, we will not only miss our fruit in season, but we will sacrifice the priceless presence of Jesus along the way.
And next time when you’re in the middle of preparing dinner and you get called away to clean yet another poop out of the bathtub, and on your way to bring the poopy bath mat out the back door, you step in pee from the puppy who wasn’t taken out in time, and finish your 49th lecture of the day of why puppies take a lot of responsibility, and well, you’re the ones who begged for her, and then realize you didn’t get a diaper on the baby quick enough after you pulled him away from playing in the floating turds, because now there is a second puddle of pee, and your 5 year old is now freaking out about the turds in the tub that are by the second making their way closer to her… laugh.
Sometimes it’s a half laugh, half cry… and I think that’s okay!
“The mundane parts of life aren’t the enemy to God’s movement, they are the soil for it.” Jennie Allen
If you don’t think you have a dream in your heart, ask God. He has a plan for each one of us. We are not meant to merely survive. Eat the ripe fruit in this season.
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