Perfect Fruit
It's one of our family's many hobbies that sounded great at the start but takes much more sweat and work and time than we realized. Not only that, but my husband doesn't do anything half-heartedly: he started our blueberry patch with fifty [50!] bushes.
We started getting teeny tiny fruit in April. We would walk through the patch every day or two and identify how well they were growing. We'd watch them carefully, excited for the first ripe berry. That happened about a week ago. It was so delicious.
And just this week, the ripe blueberries started flowing like water. We call it the "blue tide." For the past three days we have spent at least two hours each morning picking.
They are BEAUTIFUL. One one branch, you'll have every color from white to green to pink to purple to blue. Sometimes they're so heavy with delicious fruit the branch will bend over to the ground. And just like this picture portrays, the unripe, almost-ripe, and perfect are all jumbled together on the branch.
Only the blue ones are perfect.
So though it would be easy to just grab the end of the branch and pull off the entire clump, that never happens because they're not ripe at the same time. Each berry has to be picked carefully and individually.
And just like God regularly does when I spend hours in silence doing something that doesn't require too much brain power, He began to speak to my soul:
"This blueberry bush looks like your life."
I stood there with my entire right arm deep into the center of a bush, straining to grab the one ripe berry in a sea of green ones. I smiled as I considered that my life really was like a blueberry bush, if I consider that each berry is an opportunity to live for Jesus:
Most of the berries are still green. If I pick a berry too early, it will never ripen and will never taste good. In my own life, that's like the situations that I'm not ready for yet. If I were to be confronted with a situation beyond my faith, it would be wasted.
Some of the berries are gross. Everything wants to eat a berry. Japanese beetles, birds, ants, worms, and pretty much any fruit-eating creature loves blueberries because they taste good, have no thorns, and are sitting there for the picking. (We have some friends with blueberry bushes who saw a coyote eating the berries right off the bush just last week!) These gross berries represent my lost opportunities. They are the times when I let sin or influences or pride or my own timetable take over. If I find myself unguarded or unprepared, I realize I have missed an opportunity to live for Christ.
There's nothing better than a perfect berry. You can't miss it. It's deep blue all around. There are no holes or dirt or spider webs attached. They are plump, full of juice, and perfect to eat right off the branch. These berries remind me of the times in my life when I was ready. Really ready. When my faith was ready for the challenge and I lived victoriously because of Christ's Spirit powerfully working in me.
So as I continued picking, I prayed. I asked God to open my eyes to opportunities that He had ordained for me and understand that it was His will. I asked God to protect me from myself and the words, thoughts, attitudes, and actions that would ruin what might otherwise be healthy fruit. I asked Him to give me patience to wait for maturity in my life, not rushing into something I wanted but waiting for His perfect timing.
I prayed for perfect fruit. It's rare but it is wonderful. And as I considered the blueberry bush, I realized my life was not one berry; it was a bush, full of opportunities and possibilities. If one berry is ruined, all is not lost. Similarly, if one opportunity is missed or squandered, my faith is not wasted. I've got gallons more opportunities to come when His time is right.
As I carried the berries back to the house, I remembered that the word "perfect" in the New Testament meant "complete." I went to the Blue Letter Bible website and found it:
"All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work," (2 Timothy 3:16-17, HCSB).
The Greek word for complete, ἄρτιος (artios), means "fitted; complete, perfect; having reference apparently to special aptitude for given uses." I want to be fitted to the situation God puts me in. I want to be filled with the understanding and wisdom to make the right decisions. And that comes only through God's Word. Through it I am taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained in righteousness.
And when God's Word is truly living and active in me (Hebrews 4:12), I will be perfect, ready for every good work.
Complete. Perfect. Competent. Proficient. Completely prepared.
We get ripe for God's use only when His Word is complete in us.
Go eat some blueberries and dig into Scripture.
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