Month: April 2010

If you hate the fruit, cut the tree down

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Lord of mercy! This was how I felt after a conversation i held with two people today. One of those conversations that start and then a few minutes later you wish you had walked out of the room before it began. Man must now even be discerning enough to know when something is about to happen…lol. Anyway, somewhere along the conversation, I had to keep quiet as I realised we were not going to agree. Although I cannot write the details of the conversation it made me wonder on some things. Sometimes we encounter some attitudes, habits and opinions that make you want to scream. Sometimes, we even observe some in ourselves that make us cringe. Those things that make you ask “why are you saying, behaving or acting like this?!”  I think even Jesus encountered some of our funny thought pattern. You may have heard Him ask his disciples questions like “where is your faith?” or “do you still not understand?” and “how could you not know I was not talking about bread!” lol and to Peter “get behind me Satan!”

I have often found myself trying to correct some of my bad habits or to try to help others see that a behaviour is not appropriate however today, a phrase that rocked my thinking a few years ago popped right back in my head “if you hate the fruit, cut the tree down.” You cannot get rid of a bad habit by dealing with that habit. You need to go to the root of it. Every wrong thinking is attached to a wrong belief. Renew your mind says Romans 12:2.Many of the things we deal with in our daily lives are the result of a wrong belief  system. Our thoughts are like trees growing in our minds, and given the right conditions, they would bear fruit – in our decisions and attitudes to people and to life. If a tree is bad, the fruit will be bad. The problem is not the fruit but the tree. Many times, we want to deal with the fruits by plucking them off the tree but we forget that someday, given the right conditions and in the right season the tree will blossom again and those fruits will come out. Have you ever wondered why we are asked to crucify the flesh? There is no cure for the flesh, it has to be killed. Unless you pull a tree down, it will bear fruit every year. Now imagine how annoying that would be lol.

My conclusion after my discussion? The word of God is my plumb line.

Make a tree bad and the fruit will be bad, make a tree good and you will enjoy the lovely fruit or the drink from it. So if you hate the fruit, pull the tree down.

…Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God – Romans 12:2

O What A Friend I have In You

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Today I woke up with this song by Israel and New Breed “You’ve been a friend“. I have woken up with this song a few times in the last couple of weeks or so.  Each time, I’ve found myself wondering on my friendship with Jesus. How He’s kept me and been faithful. I have been part of those that danced to the song “what a friend we have in Jesus”.  I thought about how often I praise Him for being The Constant in my life. Always there, always faithful, a Rock I can lean on at all times, forever catching me when I fall. You know the One who remains when everyone else runs away. The friend that we all long to be and to have. Today was different this song meant different to me and I think I finally got the message! Is it not funny how we often misinterpret the message. We are who Christ is to us to someone else. And today He was talking to me!

Ok, so what brought on this epiphany? Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with my ‘bible buddy’ :-).We’ve been studying Mark and BB shared a message that really touched my heart.  BB spoke about the paralytic – healed by Jesus because of four men who were determined at all cost to get him his healing. These men defied the crowd and someone else’s roof (lol) just to let the paralytic through.

Where am I going with this?  I have always thought of myself as a faithful person. One who sticks by a friend at all times. However, today, I was reminded of a friendship that had recently gone sour. I felt I had done all I could to keep things flowing and I was no longer willing to make excuses for my friend or go that extra mile to fix things. I felt let down again and I was not going to budge one more time…but today, that changed. When will Jesus give up on me? Never. When will He say to me “Arielle, I have had enough of your mess” -erm, never. When will He turn around and say “You hurt me so much Arielle and I cannot bring myself to love you again like I used to. You know, we can’t be friends like that again”. Erm that’s a tough one I think…no it isnt. Never. So I ask myself, why give up on my friend?Is it ok to change my mind about a friendship and say I can go no further?

Jesus says as I have loved you, love yourselves. If He shows grace, I ought to extend the same to my friend. This brings me to the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus. Peter denied that Jesus was his friend when he was arrested. I want to believe the Peter was afraid. We all do things for varying reasons, even those things we do not mean.  I have been a peter at one point or the other to a friend or someone I dearly love.  Sometimes, those that love us let us down and sometimes we let our loved ones down. I believe what is key is to look forward. I have made mistakes but what matters more is the desire to correct those things. I have felt let down by some friends but I believe they did not mean to hurt me. I believe my focus should be on where we are going and not on what has not been. And although some walls are more difficult to mend than others, what matters is that we try. If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again :-)

I want to be like these men who did everything possible to get the paralytic to Jesus. I want to give my all to relationships so that in the end perhaps a friend will turn to me and say “O what a friend I have in you”. Jesus did the same for me and its my delight to extend this to my friends too. 

I am committed to you xx