Apples and Trees part 1
Anytime I notice similarities between parents and their children you can bet I'll raise and eyebrow and say, "Apples and trees, man. Apples and trees." Because while I do believe that your environment does have a lot to say as far as molding you... well... let me say it this way: "The land produced vegetation--all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:12 NLT). A seed produces after its own kind. Apple seeds can't produce oranges. When people meet my father they always remark on how similar we are. Ditto when people meet me son. And I always tell them, "I am who I am for a reason." Because I am my father's son. I have his DNA. Do you see where I'm going with this? (And just so nobody feels left out, there are ways in which I am EXACTLY like my mother. Things that happen where I can shoot her a look because we both catch something that nobody else did.) And here's the thing: Seeing yourself in someone--especially someone you love--goes one of two ways. You either see yourself in them in a positive way, and can't believe how proud you are to have a little mini-me. Or you see things in them that you don't like about yourself. And the latter can be hard. Really, really, hard. Because we are who we are. And every New Year it seems like we target those things that we don't like. New Year's Resolutions, right? Or when someone calls us out on it... like... we know it's there. But we live with it as best we can until someone else throws it in our face. Then we think we need to change. Turn over a new leaf. But here's the deal: The leaf isn't the problem. The tree is the problem. Remember when Jesus rose from the dead and Mary thought she was the gardener? Well, she wasn't wrong. Look at Matthew 7:19, "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Wait. Let's back up a little bit. In the garden of Eden there were two trees of note. The tree of knowledge of good and evil (the fig tree, the tree of death), and the Tree of Life. Man ate from the wrong tree. He ate from the tree of death and on that day he surely died. Because what else could the tree of death produce BUT death. God didn't punish man for eating of that tree. He tried to warn man not to eat of it. But mad did what man does. Now fast forward to the gardener. Casting THAT tree that couldn't produce good fruit into the fire. Mark 11:20 (NLT), "The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up." Which brings us to the book of Revelation where there is only the Tree of Life left. What I'm trying to say, and will try to say for the next few days, is that when you know what your roots are... you know who you really are. When you know what kind of tree you came from, you know what kind of fruit you are. Spoiler: The fruit of the Tree of Life... is love. The fruit that YOU are... is love. You are who you are for a reason. And that reason is that your heavenly Father loves you!