Road trips and fruit trees

Recently, I’ve been missing the West Coast…..and the Southern California ocean in particular near Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes. It’s funny how our thoughts can take us on rabbit trails sometimes. The ocean reminded me of a few road trips to get there.

A few years ago I drove back to Los Angeles from Reno with my Uncle Jim and his friend Tom. As we drove 395 South, Tom and I started talking about trees. His father’s father started a tree farm in Northern California that’s still in the family today. It’s a Christmas tree farm. Anyways, I thought I’d ask Tom, who seemed to know a thing or two about horticulture, about a tree that was growing in my backyard in LA at the time.

I was living in a condo for about a year with three other people who had already been living there for a few years. In the sliver of what is called a back yard, a tree produced three kinds of fruit. Yeah, that’s not a misprint. Three kinds of fruit on one tree! Crazzyy!

When I first moved in, there were delicious limes to pick. About six months later, this SAME tree began producing lemons. Alright, yeah. It was hilarious at first until a year later the SAME tree started producing oranges – very tart oranges, but oranges nonetheless. You can call me crazy or a liar (which my brother Greg called me …..He still doesn’t believe me) but my roommates and I had a lime-lemon-orange tree.

So I asked Tom about this, thinking that possibly it was uncommon. But, to my surprise he wasn’t surprised at all. He said it’s called grafting. Grafting describes any number of techniques in which a section of a stem with leaf buds is inserted into the stock of a tree and actually changes the ability of the tree to bear different variations of fruit. Grafting several cultivars on one tree can create interesting results, such as the lime-lemon-orange tree in our backyard at the time. Tom said you can even buy trees that have been grafted this way.

I got to thinking about grafting and realized how similar grafting is to what Jesus said: “Abide in me and you will bear much fruit.”

I love the Message Remix Bible and the way it reads Galatians 5!

To me, this perfectly describes abiding in God AND being grafted in.

“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about, it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good – crucified. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts but work out its implications in every detail of life. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”

God never meant to make clones of people. Every single individual has a unique fingerprint. Your hair color, eye color, body type, stature, and all the in betweens make you a one of a kind original. God wants to take all of you and add all of Himself to make something spectacular like a lime-lemon-orange tree!!

I was also reminded that there is always room for people to change, to transform. You may be producing lemons in your life right now….but there’s room for other fruit.

Reminder for me: Don’t compare yourself with others. Don’t compare where they are in life with where you are in life. Just stay in God’s pocket. You’ll always have flavor that way, even if the flavor changes!!