It’s the closing bell of winter and I’m watching the changes in the plum tree out my study window. Each day, a few more puffs of white blossoms appear transforming one bloom into clusters of sweet smelling flowers clinging to bare branches. The tree’s first blossom was an odd anomaly, kind of lonely by itself in the tangle of brown branches. I had to go outside and take a closer look to see what the white fluff was.
Repentance is like that in our barren lives. Initially, we accept God’s cleansing love as a lovely precious gift and hoard it inside, savoring its goodness. The first blossom of regeneration blooms, then another, and still another appears in our daily lives. People start to notice and want to take a closer look. We are no longer bare branches, but God’s love is flowing through us, producing the first evidence of spiritual fruit.
Gardeners say, “the sap is flowing” when they see the first buds on a tree in late winter or early spring. This makes me ask myself, “did that last hard freeze crisis in my life make me brittle, or is God’s redemptive love still flowing through me in spite of the harshness of what I’ve just endured?”
Is God’s life-giving sap flowing in my dried up winter branches?
Therefore, produce fruit that proves your repentance.