Last night hubby and I took a walk around the neighborhood after dinner; and upon returning to the house, we decided to go check on the plum tree to see if the plums were getting ripe yet. I had noticed the deer hanging out around the plum tree last Friday for an extended amount of time. With all these hot sunny days we’ve had the past two weeks, the plums surely must be about ripe.
On our way over to the plum tree, hubby noticed that the Easter Lily was blooming! What a total surprise! So of course I just had to pause and take a photo …
(By the way, speaking of surprises, can you see the green bug photo-bombing the photo? I didn’t notice it until just now when I uploaded this photo to the blog. How on earth is it vertical like that?? Is it hanging? It doesn’t quite look like a spider. If I had noticed it last night, I could have identified it with my Seek app.)
This little Easter Lily is literally right nearby the plum tree. Hubby and I were standing in the grass, just a short way out from the plum tree (which is slightly back in the forest). As I finished taking the above photo, and as hubby and I were about to step into the forest to check on the plums … an adolescent bear was right there! It was literally right there at the plum tree!
It had been feasting on the plums the whole time I had been taking the lily photo, and as hubby and I had been chatting. It heard us the whole time and was right there … and we had no idea.
This wasn’t the large bear I shared a photo of back in April. It was the smaller, adolescent bear I had shared this photo of back in May …
Hubby totally saw the bear underneath the plum tree, and as it turned and crashed back through the brush a few feet away.
Whoa … no wonder the bear was right there feasting! … the plum tree was absolutely loaded! In fact, the plums were weighing the branches down so much that the branches were drooping low to the ground forming sort-of a tree-curtain.
The bear hadn’t gone far … it was waiting for us to leave so that it could come back and finish its feast!
So hubby and I decided now wasn’t a good time to check on the plum tree. And we headed inside the house.
Bright and early this morning I carried my portable speaker out with me … and listened to my online sermon while picking plums … just to make noise so the wildlife would know I was there! I wanted some of those delicious plums too!
The plums are tiny this year … about the size of a large bouncy-ball. So you can just pop them in your mouth. They are super sweet (when they are fully ripe) … though this morning I was generously picking plenty of not-quite-ripe plums. They’ll ripen up no problem inside the house over the next week. And I’m not exactly keen on going out to pick again, now that I know I have so much competition!
Here you can see the plums I picked for hubby and me. The wildlife can have the rest.
Seeing the plum tree absolutely loaded with fruit, I knew I just had to do a follow-up post to yesterday’s blog post. Yesterday’s blog post considered the account in Matthew 21:18-22 where Jesus cursed the fig tree because it was green & leafy but had no fruit.
Yesterday’s blog post discussed how the fig tree was an object lesson representing people who are very religious and who claim to love God and follow Jesus … but there is no spiritual fruit in their life.
If we claim to love God, and if we claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ … then our life should look like this!!
Our life should be loaded with spiritual fruit!! Absolutely loaded! So heavy with fruit that the branches of our life are drooping low to the ground and forming sort-of a tree-curtain.
This right here is what our life should be looking like! This right here!
If we claim to be a Christian and if our life does not look like this … then something is wrong.
If hubby’s and my plum tree was leafy and green without any fruit at all, then that might mean that it needs to be pruned. Come winter, a heavy-duty pruning job would take place! This is what God does to those who are followers of Jesus but who are not bearing spiritual fruit. God disciplines. God prunes. In order for that person to be fruitful.
On the other hand … if our plum tree was leafy and green without any fruit at all, then that also might mean that the plum tree just needs to be chopped down. This is the situation with the fig tree in Jesus’s object lesson. The fig tree was cursed by Jesus. And the fig tree withered immediately.
This is what God does to those who reject his offer of salvation through Jesus Christ.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
– John 15:1-8
