“Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;”

John Keats

October is the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” on our farm. This year marks my 36th September as my beloved Farmer’s wife and allows me to look at the topic of fruitfulness with at least a bit of authority. Each fall I look forward in anticipation to what the crops we planted in spring will yield. It has become a habit to also look at the fruit (or lack of it) in my spiritual walk as well.

One painful lesson I have learned is sometimes a field will appear like it is a bumper crop, but turn out to be an utter and abysmal failure.

One season we planted seed corn and had the best-looking crop you would ever want to see…but that was from a distance.  The corn was tall, lush green, and thriving from the road, but as I did a bit of crop scouting by walking through the field, I saw the real story. Very few, tiny kernels on the ears of corn. This happened because of a short drought and intensely hot weather during pollination. Due to the heat, the pollen was killed, and there was hardly any fruit hiding behind the leaves.

Something similar is described in Mark 11:12-14, Jesus was terribly disappointed to find just leaves and no fruit!

It is the same way in our lives. Just because we look good on the outside, “do” the right things, “say” the perfect words doesn’t mean we are authentically fruitful. We hide behind the leaves.

Girl, maybe, just maybe your life looks impressive from the road, but if someone could really get to the middle of your field, they would see the seed was stunted and there is little fruit in your life. Just so you know, Galatians 2:22-23 describes spiritual fruitfulness as qualities like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Remember: this is a description of fruit, not leaves.

Come to think of it…we women have been hiding behind leaves for a long time!  Genesis 3:7-8  Poor Eve. When will we learn we can’t hide from God?

Let me encourage you to do some crop scouting

1.    How does your crop look from inside the field?
2.    What are the leaves of your life?
3.    What is the fruit of your life?

Just like the disappointing seed corn field I mentioned, spiritual fruit is challenging to cultivate during seasons of disappointment and stress- but not impossible.  

^{Ephesians 3:20}

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…”

Photo by Caroline Veronez on Unsplash (9/24/2018)