Fruit that Blesses

This past Mother's Day in our church, the children did the majority of the tasks in the service. They greeted guests at the doors, passed out bulletins, read the prayers, led the responsive reading and were responsible for all of the music. I was amazed at how talented they all are, what a great bunch of kids we have at the church. Our children participated like many others, and at the end of the service a member came to me and told me how much he was blessed by the children. As I thought about it, I was blessed too. There was just something about what the children did that melted the deep places of my heart and blessed me. It was their Fruit.

To me, the music was the most impactful. There was a lot of great music, including a young lady who did a violin solo, and groups of young ladies singing anthems. But, my favorite part of the service was the ending, it finished with a four year old boy singing and playing his guitar with his dad. The joy that little boy had on his face filled the room and truly transformed the space. It was certainly good fruit.

I was looking through the scriptures recently and using the concordance to search out verses that talk about Fruit as something a person does. I typically use the NIV and I found almost 50 different verses where our actions are referred to as fruit. Some verses warned about the choices we make and the bad fruit that will develop, others talked about fruit that blesses and other verses mentioned our ability to know someone's faith by the fruit they produce. I had no idea that there were so many, that is almost one for every week of the year.

Part of our desire with Raising an Orchard is to raise children that bear fruit for the Kingdom of Christ. This is a difficult task, as you can't make someone bear fruit, you can only influence them. We work hard to provide our children with opportunities to share the gifts God has blessed them with, however, you never know if they will use them. I am thankful that our church is also giving the children a place to share their gifts. It is the fruit we bear that helps draw others to Christ and His amazing love. I pray that your children and our children will continue to grow and bear fruit that blesses!