The Apple Tree

THE APPLE TREE

There is an apple tree in my back yard.  When the conditions are right, it yields a bounty of apples.  They are delicious and have no preservatives or pesticides of any kind on them.  This year there was enough rain to help it produce over 100 apples.  I also have a grape vine in my yard.  It’s out of control and untrained.  This year the grape vine spread out all over the apple tree and sucked all the moisture out of it’s leaves and branches.  Almost every apple fell to the ground and was unsalvageable.  All too soon the apple tree was bare.  There were no apples on it, and strangely enough it had no leaves.  The branches were bare and brown.  As I sat staring at the apple tree pondering its plight, it occurred to me that we are sometimes like that apple tree.  We have been given everything that we need in order to produce fruit.  God has prepared us, trained us, led us, and blessed us with gifts and talents to use, and then we allow the words of doubt to creep all over us like the grape vine did to the apple tree.  Fear, doubt, disbelief and poor self image creep all through us and suck out all the nurturing that God placed in us leaving us dry, barren and without fruit.  All our blessings lay scattered on the ground.  The good thing is that we can pick up our blessings and begin again.  Rip the vines of fear, self-doubt, unbelief and insufficiency off of you and go get your blessing!  Open your business!  Write your books!  Ask for that raise! Create that organization! Bring your invention to life!  You can do it, I know you can!  God has placed within you everything that you need to succeed.  It’s your time.  Jeremiah 29:11  “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”