Let's Get it Started....

Do you ever just need to start something, but the task at hand seems bigger than the energy or time you have to handle?    Do you ever want to be Scarlett O'Hara and say "I don't want to think about it today; I'll think about it tomorrow."?  Let me introduce myself...I am this person.    Take, for instance, this blog.   I have had "Confessions" in my heart for more years than I want to say, and I have made up every excuse in the book (and then some).  But the truth is that I lay in bed each night with posts twirling around in my head and conviction in my heart.  So let's get this party started.

A few months ago, I was in Germany, and I read a passage in Mark 11.   In verse 12, we see that Jesus was hungry, so he went to a fig tree, but there were no figs on the tree.   Mark makes it very clear that it wasn't fig season, so the implication is that it really should have been no surprise that there were no figs on the tree.   However, in verse 14, Jesus cursed the tree and said "No one will ever eat figs from you again."    I've read this passage many times, and I must confess that it's always bugged me.   It doesn't seem "fair" that Jesus would curse a tree for not bearing fruit when it was not fruit season.   But what if it wasn't about the tree at all?   What if He was just showing us that the game has changed?   In 2 Tim 4:2, we are exhorted to "be ready in season and out of season".   Jesus told the disciples to look unto the fields for they are ripe for harvest.   In John 15, Jesus talks about us being grafted into Him, and the fruit we should be bearing (and the resulting pruning).       Is it possible that the expectation is for us to bear fruit always?   Is that even possible?    I put before you that it is not only possible, but also expected - not in a legalistic, strike-you-with-lightning-if-you-don't kind of way, but in a this-is-who-I-created-you-to-be kind of way.    You see, when Jesus left the earth, He promised a helper, the Holy Spirit, who has come to live and work in and through us.   And Galatians 5 tells us that the Spirit is fruitful.  All we have to do is allow the Spirit to move in and through us and to respond as He leads, and there will be fruit.  Easy enough, right?   

What does this have to do with my procrastination?    Simply put, I can no longer hold on to my "somedays" and remain unfruitful.   I can't tell the Holy Spirit that I don't "feel" like being fruitful today, so I'm just going to be "leafy" instead.   I can't wallow in the fact that life isn't turning out exactly the way I thought it would, while hoping that "someday" something will change.    

The season for fruitfulness is now. 

What does that require?   Complete yieldedness to the One who knows all, sees all.  

My response?   Yes, Lord.   

Starting tomorrow...

(heehee - just kidding.  Was wondering if y'all were still with me!)