Root to the Fruit

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. –John Muir




“I don’t trust nobody,” he smiled and said as he pulled a fist size roll of cash from his pocket and audaciously began peeling through its bills looking for something smaller than a 20. And the bony, teenage counter clerk at the overnight gas station just stared almost trembling in envy at the wad of what must be ten of his paychecks while holding out my friends’ pack of Newports. And without fully understanding the truth in its meaning I laughed back while mocking them both and answered, “Dishonest people usually don’t.”


Now years later I was reminded of that saying as a friend and I talked about how a person’s insecurity always seems to reveal their guilt. For instance, the excessively jealous spouse is usually the one most likely to have an affair.


And if you haven’t read it in awhile, check out Edgar Allen Poe’s very short story The Tell-Tale Heart- where the author tries dealing with the guilt of killing an old man while being questioned by the police: “The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness - until, at length, I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.”


It’s this subject of who we truly are in the center of our hearts and how it affects who we are as people in action that I’m writing about here. In my lingo I call it “Root to the Fruit” and it comes from scripture: “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.” -Luke 6:43-45


While I first sobered up I continually asked God to change my whole life. I was almost suicidally sick of the person I had become. My morals were slippery with desperation. My sense of humor was jaded and perverted. My amusement was morbid and vengeful and in general, I just felt like I had become a parasite. Like someone who just feeds on the scraps of others while complaining and giving nothing back.


I shared this with my friend the other night by saying, “I don’t know if drinking made me the way I was or if I drank to deal with knowing I was that way.”


In either case, if I was going to live sober at all I needed to change. I wanted to be cheerful. I wanted to be trusting and trustworthy. I wanted to be giving and helpful. I wanted to be loving. In short, I wanted to be a shiny new person without any of the old scratches or scars. And it was during this time I came across 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”


And in my simple self-controlling mind I thought, well there it is right there! It’s a list of how to be. So I went out that day and bought a small notebook and wrote a few words in red marker on each page- John is Patient. John is Kind. John does not Envy. John does not Boast. ect…


I then read the pages over a few times trying to get them to sink in a little until I finally put the thin notebook in my back pocket, armed and ready, as I headed out the door. Well it didn’t work. No matter how many times throughout that week I read those pages in anger, in frustration and in jealousy I was still not at all patient, kind or any of those things.


At best as they say in AA, I was “white-knuckling it” with a stubborn silence while burying my resentment even further inside me.


But you see, I was thinking backward. I was thinking that if I changed the way I acted then my heart would eventually follow and change the person I was. And that’s kinda like a pine tree trying to produce apples thinking that if it could just force out a few then it’ll turn into an apple tree.


Luckily God didn’t give up but instead led me back into scripture. And through his counsel I eventually began to learn that the whole process of accepting Christ is not the same as working out to a P90X video. Christ doesn’t just show you all the ways you should live and then say, “Now get out there and be healthy!”


No, accepting Christ means allowing his spirit to enter inside you. It’s as though your heart gets an entirely new captain who changes course to steer you out of the darkness toward light. And my job is not to force change by grabbing the wheel but to let go and submit myself to be changed.


Here’s how that looks on a daily level- I start in prayer by thanking Jesus for being present with me. I talk to him plainly as my emotions rise and fall throughout the day. When I’m at all overwhelmed I stop what I’m doing, find a quiet place and verbally hand the whole situation over to him saying, “Lord, I need you to lead me through this.”


In return, God leads me by speaking to me through my heart. Sometimes it’s as simple as a feeling that says, “Hey that’s a good thing, I should go do that.” Or, “Hey that’s wrong and I should apologize for doing that.” And week by week my heart leads my actions further from the old ways of desperation and perversion and into a new way that’s more like the Love I read about in 1 Corinthians.


And I’ll be the first to admit it’s a slow process. In a biblical way, it’s purposely meant to take my whole life. But just as in the analogy of a tree, I am slowly growing- I’m learning to sink my roots deep into prayer and faith instead of my own unpredictable self. And surprisingly enough, every once in awhile someone might even come up and say, “Hey, thanks for being kind.” (which always blows my sinful mind)


Think of Psalm 1:1-4
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.


And also Colossians 2:6
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him…”


Blessings...