THE FIG TREE

By Deborah R. Turner

            Thump!  The green fig falling on the tin roof of the cabin in Ethiopia startled Becky awake.  Quickly she slipped out of bed, dressed in shorts and tank top, and ran outside to stare up at the spreading boughs of the fig tree.  A screech and wildly waving branches alerted her to the black and white colobus monkeys at play in the early morning sunlight.  The fig that had hit the cabin roof had either been thrown or dropped by one of them.

            Still looking up, she walked to the trunk of the tree and stared at the great branches,  The tree soared high in the air above her, leaving the fifteen year old feeling dwarfed and insignificant. 

            Following the monkeys' aerial ballet, Becky moved around the immense tree trunk, trying to imitate their flying leaps, jumping over the thick, knee-high roots.  When she tripped over a particularly big one and landed on her stomach on a nest of dried leaves, the monkeys stopped and chattered down at her until she got back up.  Then they were off again, Becky trailing behind, laughing at their antics until her mother called her in for breakfast.  

            The Godly Christian is much like that huge old fig tree standing silently in Ethiopia.

            The roots are what keeps the tree upright, solidly anchored so rain, wind and storm cannot blow it over.  They spread out and down, stabilizing the tree and sucking up nourishment from the moist soil. 

            So too does the righteous man dig into the word of God, feeding on it and finding sustenance for his soul.  The storms of life will be unable to blow him over because he is firmly anchored in the Word.

            The fig tree has always been very important to the people in the middle east, being considered the most fruitful of all trees.  They are planted in the center of the vineyards and are not to be cut down if they yield even the most minute amounts of fruit. 

            I don't know the species of tree that stood over that cabin.  The monkeys in it were dropping the green, immature figs while they searched for the ripe soft fruit.  When they found one they liked, they held it aloft like a prize, then found a spot away from the others while they ate it, enjoying each sweet bite.

            Fig trees can bear fruit for ten months of the year and yeild three crops for harvesting -- the first figs ripen in June, the second in August, the third, which are small and of little value, ripen in September and are sometimes left on the tree all winter. 

            When the season is right, the Christian will begin bearing fruit.  Everyone bears at a different time.  Some may bear early, shortly after they come to the Lord, some may wait awhile and bear in the second or even the third season. 

            Others may be like one species of tree that takes three years for the fruit to ripen.  That may seem like forever while others all around are seeing results, but the fruit is just as sweet and the harvest just as bountiful.

            The fig tree has two barren months, between April and May.  This is a time for the tree to replenish itself for the next crop of figs.  The fig tree needs barren times to store up nutrients for its fruit-bearing times.  If it didn't get them, the tree would become depleted and the fruit it bore would be smaller and less sweet. 

            So too must we as Christians go through the "barren" times.  Do not fret over those times when you feel nothing is happening.  It is another season.  A season of rest.  These resting times are important.  It is then when we are replenished for the next season of bearing fruit. 

            The Lord has a season for each person to bear his fruit.  If we continue to follow the Lord, sinking our roots deeply into the Living Soil for our nourishment, then the Bible gives us a promise.  It says the Christian "shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he does shall prosper."

                                                                                     (Psalm 1:3 NKJV)

c. 2003