God’s been speaking to us over the last few days through Autumn raspberries we’re trying – and not managing – to stay on top of picking…
They feel completely miraculous… we can barely keep up with their fruitfulness!
One minute they look completely stripped bare, like there’s nothing left to give and you’ve cleaned them out completely… and then, sometimes as little as half a day later, there are loads more to pick.
We felt God highlight to us that this is what we feel like at the moment after a very intense few months of ministry and movement and with transition still not fully behind us; like we’ve been picked bare and there’s nothing more to give… but then all this fruit still comes.
The prayer rhythm is up and running again. The trial dispersed email has been created and is already fizzing with life. The new season is getting planned. New creative outreach projects are already being prepared. New resources are being drafted. And the second round of boxes are somehow also getting packed in and around it all.
And best of all, he is inspiring faith and joy and bringing life and beauty and laughter and giving us rest and strength to pray and share and shape new visions and strategies of actions to take. He’s a remarkable source for never-ending fruit!
How often, and how easily, we seem to forget that our supply is eternal…
That we can be like the beautiful image of the Psalm 1 tree when we plant ourselves in him.
This week we heard that one of the “fruitiest” Christians a number of us have ever met, and who has ever prayed for and supported the Sanctuary, had gone to be with Jesus after a long and faithful life. He will be over the moon!
But his going – whilst leaving a huge legacy among so, so many people – will leave a large gap because he and his wife of later years just kept fruiting. When they couldn’t go out as much they focused on leading their neighbours to Jesus, when they couldn’t take action they prayed.
In every season there they were – raspberries, raspberries, raspberries. Lush, extraordinary, beautiful lives that shone all the more brightly the frailer they got – more and more transparent to Jesus’ love.
Their lives – and our raspberries – reminded us of a scripture which several of us had been thinking about a few days before the raspberries came to our attention. So we’re passing it on to you, along with these reflections, and praying its truth over every one of you facing any kind of trial, strain, sorrow or stretch at the moment.
Could do the same for those known to you facing these kind of situations too?
“But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us.
We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10 The Voice)