Praying for good fruits

 

A couple of years ago, while driving to our family cabin my wife and I noticed that some of the trees and other flora were encroaching onto the roadside, creating a potential hazard to the cars driving by.  As we were discussing the problem, one of us said that they should be cut back away from the roadside.  Our granddaughter, who was in the backseat, started to cry and asked us why we would want to “hurt” the beautiful trees just because they were too far out in the road.  She never fails to amaze me with her grasp of faith and compassion for all living things.

Even though she was only ten years old or so, her arguments for leaving them alone were pretty solid.  Surely, they still possessed beauty.  Little boys and girls could climb on them, and birds could nest in them.  They provided shade and comfort from the hot summer sun.  Their leaves and needles could be mulch or compost.  Aren’t those also fruits that bear valuing? 

They were valuable and insightful arguments.  I explained to her that proper pruning didn’t necessarily hurt the trees. And even if we did need to cut them, wouldn’t their wood be useful for warmth in our cabin or to build new homes?

Her strong feelings that day about the well-being of the trees and our discussion of other “fruits” that they can provide and the gospel I reflected on today (Matthew 7:15-20) led me to ponder how our Creator must feel about us and our good fruits and bad fruits.  How difficult is it for our Loving Parent to prune us, or allow us to be thrown into the fire?  Isn’t the covenant with Abram (Genesis 15:1-18) really a statement that our Lord will be there for us, across countless generations and innumerable descendants, a constant source of love and support (forever as Psalm 105:1-9 says) as we live our lives?

We have such a powerful example of bearing good fruit in the life of Jesus and the holy women and men who have put His teachings into action; we call them saints.  We have the examples of other holy men and women who are of different faith traditions (or even no professed faith tradition) who live powerful lives bearing good fruit; they will be called saints.

Seeing these examples of loving lives well-lived, and knowing that God’s love is so deep, how can we consciously bear bad fruit?  How can we harm others, or be selfish, or blindly squander our beautiful world, or fail to consider what evils our actions can cause?  If we are aware, won’t our bad fruits be lessened in number and impacts?  Won’t we say thank you to our Lord for the gift of life itself by avoiding bad fruits as we live out our one precious gift?

And so, my prayer today is for the grace to be mindful that my actions are my fruits, and can be good or not, and that being aware of my love for my Nurturer will help me bear good fruit.