Spirit Sticks

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)

My step-father, Onis Smith, is one hundred years old. (I have told him that I sure hope I get his genes!) Like just about everybody you meet from a century ago, Onis grew up on a farm—and he worked a farm himself until he became an electrician. He put in just about all of the electricity in that part of North Arkansas—a lot of it before he had it in his own house! But I stray—as I was saying, Onis is three-parts farmer, and boy does he have the proverbial green thumb. He can make anything grow and produce.

When he and my mom (now 86) got married about thirteen years ago, he took what was to all appearances a mere stick from his former residence and stuck it in the ground in their back yard. Just a few years later hundreds of delicious figs were being harvested from that “stick,” and as far as I know, are still to this day (they have since relocated).

When we (the Izards) moved into our current house almost five years ago, Onis gave me a stick—literally—from that same tree. He had been using this stick as a stake for one of his pepper plants. My tree has not grown as quickly, of course (those green thumbs really do come in handy), but there it is in my own back yard, loaded with its own figs—for which I am abundantly grateful come harvest time.

God is a producer. God is love, yes, but He doesn’t just sit on His love or “feel” His love—He produces love. Wherever God goes, love takes root, blossoms, and bears fruit—the same with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—where these things are popping up in earnest, the Spirit of God has been dropping sticks of His own!

We are the branches—the sticks—of God. The Gospel of John says that if we abide in Christ the Vine, we will bear much fruit. What kind of fruit? The same kind God bears. We may not look like much compared to the Tree from which we fell—to begin with, just an old stick that seems worth throwing on the burn pile. And depending on the kind of green-thumb nurturing that goes on between times, we may not bear as much as the next tree (I’m on the stubby side, in more ways than one). But if we are cuttings from the Old Stock, we will be producing, to one degree or another, the same love/joy/peace/etc. as God Himself.

“God, we are nothing apart from You. But with Your Holy Spirit residing in us, and us in Him, we can do all things—even bear the fruit of God in love and joy and peace and all things good. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, dear God—may His sap run through us, producing in us and through us the same fruit You have always produced and always will produce in those You have borne Yourself. We pray You would do this for Christ’s sake and in His name. Amen.”