It all started when I was having coffee with a close friend at our favorite coffee shop. She and I have one of those close relationships where we can span a broad array of topics over a leisurely two hours sipping our favorite brew. And on this morning, she began to share about a friend of hers who has a fig tree.

I was surprised to hear about a fig tree growing in the Midwest state we all live in, but she explained it is in a large pot that sits on a wheeled cart and in the warm months it is rolled outdoors and in the winter it is brought back in to keep it growing and blooming with figs.

As she was explaining all this to me, she added that there were hundreds of figs on the tree and told me how delicious they were. I responded that I had never tasted a ripe fig. They don’t show up in produce departments here and I have not been enthusiastic about dried figs. I recalled learning about that in Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg where she devoted an entire chapter to figs.

“Once plucked from the tree, a fresh fig has only an eight-to-fourteen day window to be enjoyed. Many grocery stores refuse to sell ripe figs because of their high perishability.”

From Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg

That said, my friend said I really had to try some and the next week when we planned to meet, she would bring me some. I was game for that after hearing her talk about how scrumptious they were. I was also immediately reminded of places in the Bible where figs and fig trees are mentioned and that there was significance to them.

Many of you may have been enjoying delicious ripe figs all along, but this was going to be an adventure because you can’t really learn about how a fig tastes by reading about it.

A little reading about figs and fig trees will give you a greater appreciation for them (minus the actual taste). You see, they are unique among fruit trees. In my part of the Midwest where apple, pear, plum, and peach trees are common, we look forward to mid-to-late summer when they will begin to ripen for that year. But with fig trees it is a different story. They are multi-cropping and harvested several times during a year. In ancient Israel some fig trees were known to produce three times during the year giving them almost year-round access to these delights. Figs are not only delicious, but great nutritional sources of nutrients we need.

And consider this: statistics on how many figs can be produced on one fig tree range from 10,000 to as many as 75,000 figs per tree. That is truly being fruitful!

“Not only does the fruit taste scrumptious, but each fig contains more potassium than a banana, more fiber than a prune, and more calcium than a glass of milk.”

From Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg

That gives perspective on what we read in the Gospel of Mark:

¹³ Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.”

Mark 11:13 (NIV)

Clearly, Jesus expected to find figs and how much more so when we learn there was not just one short season of harvest for figs. The passage from Mark goes on to show us Jesus cursed that fig tree for its lack of fruit.

The Bible often tells us to be fruitful in both the Old and New Testaments. How much God points us to his desire and plan to be fruitful! But whether an apple tree or a fig tree, delicious fruit doesn’t appear without time, tending, and good conditions to produce a rich harvest. And that is true of us as well.

“Spiritual fruit is the result of being rooted in relationship with Christ. Any fruit – including love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – provides evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.”

From Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg

With a fresh review of what I had learned about figs from Margaret Feinberg, I was even more eager for my next coffee date with my friend to finally taste a fig for myself.

And I was not disappointed! The fruit was delicious, sweet but not too sweet, and it filled my mouth with the scrumptious juicy pulp of the fig. It was perfectly ripe, and I shared a few with my husband who also had not tasted a ripe fig before now. (He agreed they were yummy.) As we finished off the last one, our mouths were wishing there were more to taste.

One taste of a fresh fig will definitely leave you looking forward to another taste and another after that. That’s how it is when you really taste something so that you ingest all the goodness of the thing being tasted.

You long for more of it.

Many read and even enjoy God’s Word, the Bible. They know a great deal about the stories and some of the truths captured in all 66 books it contains, but it will never really produce fruit until we actually taste it, ingest Him, not just the facts and stories about Him. Only then will we truly know Him and trust Him, desire to abide in Him, and produce the fruit of his likeness.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”

Psalm 34:8 (NIV)

The Lord doesn’t just want us to know about Him, He wants an ongoing relationship with us. Many in the Old and New Testaments missed that. Too many still do today. He loves us and made that clear when He sacrificed Christ on the cross so we would not need to be separated from Him.

“One of the beauties of the fig is that, once planted, the tree will continue to produce fruit for eighty to a hundred years. That’s Christ’s vision for us: that we will continue to yield the fruit of Christlikeness and find our satisfaction in him long after gray hairs sprout and crow’s feet nestle near our eyes.”

From Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg

Have you tasted Him?

No matter who you are or what your personality type, you and I are all bombarded by words more than ever before. They come at us from every direction and every device and whether we have a love for them or hate them, they influence us even when we don’t plan on that. Sometimes we fall prey to their persuasion while other times we shut down our minds and hearts to the cacophony of them.

I have always been a lover of words and that gets confirmed by one of my primary love languages. That may be true of some of you also, but even if it isn’t the case few would deny a longing to hear words of love, encouragement and affirmation. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we all like to know that we matter in some way to someone.

One of the risks we face is that sometimes we are so hungry for the words that we get caught up in them without clarifying there is substance beyond the words themselves. That theme is front and center in The Idea of Love, a novel by Patti Callahan Henry, where the characters get caught in telling their stories as the people they would wish to be versus who they are. The enchanting story shows how each begins to enjoy the false persona and love starts to appear between two main characters that is based wholly on fictional portrayals.

We seem to be drawn to a good love story whether it is in a movie, book, or the real life of someone we know. We also long for such a story to be one where we have the leading role (even if we don’t admit it).

The challenge in that is not that it is a bad thing, but that it rarely happens like it does in the movies or your favorite novel or love song. Maybe because those focus more on “the idea of love” than what we recognize.

This isn’t something new to this generation. We have always longed to hear what we want to hear across the broad spectrum of our lives. Perhaps that was behind part of the reason Eve fell when she listened to the words used to seduce her to break the one command she was not to do in the perfect world God placed her in.

There is no question that words have power – sometimes for good and sometimes not.

They not only impact our love relationships, but our spiritual lives we well. Paul wrote about this to Timothy and notes how prevalent it will be as the time for the Lord’s return draws near.

“For the time is coming when they will no longer listen and respond to the healing words of truth because they will become selfish and proud. They will seek out teachers with soothing words that line up with their desires, saying just what they want to hear.”

2 Timothy 4:3 (TPT)

So how do we deal with this and determine what is genuine, authentic, and true? With the increase of technology available today it can be easy to get lost in a world of smoke and mirrors meant to cover the intent of the one saying the words or writing them.

An old idiom many of us are familiar with points the way:

“Actions speak louder than words.”

The quoted idiom can be found as early as the 1600’s but was first used in the form we use today in the United States by Abraham Lincoln in his Cooper Union Address. And for whatever anyone may think about this country’s self-taught lawyer who became our 16th President, his life shows the evidence of what he believed by the actions he took.

As a retired clinical counselor, I would tell you that I often would tell the person seeking my help that if the words and actions of a person do not match, believe the actions because they are not easy to fake. A person may say many things, but what he or she does will represent more of their character.

It reminds me of the song “Show Me” in the Broadway show and movie, My Fair Lady, when Eliza sings these lyrics in part to Freddy:

“Words! Words! Words!

I’m so sick of words!

I get words all day through;

First from him, now from you! Is that all you blighters can do?

Don’t talk of stars Burning above; If you’re in love,

Show me! Tell me no dreams

Filled with desire. If you’re on fire,

Show me!”

Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner

Jesus came to earth. He was the Word. God spoke the Word, but He was and is more than just talk. He demonstrated each day that He was here the truth and reality of everything He said. He showed us.

As we contend with the barrage of words in this season and how they are used to persuade, deceive, or cajole us Eugene Peterson offers us sound advice:

“If we forget that the newspapers are footnotes to Scripture and not the other way around, we will finally be afraid to get out of bed in the morning. Too many of us spend far too much time with the editorial page and not nearly enough time with prophetic vision. We get our interpretation of politics and economics and morals from journalists when we should be getting only information: the meaning of the world is most accurately given to us by God’s Word.”

Eugene Peterson in Run With the Horses

Excuses. Let’s be honest. We all have them and use them. Sometimes the reasons are valid, but other times not so much. Sometimes we use them without thinking. Many times, we use them because we want to avoid the response we may get if we simply decline to do a particular thing. That can happen because we don’t want to disappoint someone or have someone think less of us. But it can also happen because of what we believe.

The word excuses used as a noun means “a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify” or “to conceal the real reason for an action.”

That’s pretty obvious and we all know that is what we are doing. But why isn’t it okay to simply say we are tired or don’t have the financial/emotional/relational resources to agree with what is asked? Do we fear being seen as less than, incapable, or inadequate?

If we are honest with ourselves, we generally do have some of those feelings. We want others to think and believe the best about us for many reasons including trying to boost our own uncertainties about whether or not we are. We have a propensity to feel guilty if we decline too.

The issue of feelings of inadequacy are as old as time itself, but it became more popular in recent times as research about the feelings and self-concept formation developed. It is pretty clear the feelings are real, and studies can point to a number of reasons why we experience those feelings. Counselors, psychologists, pastors, and others have tried to help us sort through those feelings and eliminate them with varying degrees of success. (As a retired clinical counselor, I am well acquainted with dealing with the issue and some of the most effective tools to combat it.)

But despite my training and experience of many years, I must confess that I am not sure we are effective at totally eliminating the feelings. We face new challenges and require new skills as we go along and they can stir up that sense of inadequacy pretty quickly for most of us and then we can be tempted to wonder what happened when we thought we had dealt with it and conquered it years ago.

Feelings of inadequacy are not academic for me either. I have experienced them more than a few times in my life. They were once generalized across many things, but over time they most often popped up when I was faced with something new such as starting graduate school in my late 40’s, leaving a solid teaching career to enter the risky business of clinical counseling in private practice, creating a website where I put myself “out there” for many to evaluate and judge, and authoring a book at the age of 75. Trust me, I get it, and these are only a few of the examples in my own life I could offer you.

It’s also true that each time I have risked facing such a new thing for me, I have become a bit stronger and yet without eliminating the feeling completely.

In reading Eugene Peterson’s book, Run with the Horses, I began to see something about this common challenge with greater clarity. You see, if we delve a bit deeper into our excuses and sense of inadequacy, we also might see how often it has delayed our obedience to something God has asked of us. A quick review of the Bible stories we know shows us we are not alone. An easy example is when we look at Moses who says he can’t speak well enough to do what God has asked of him.

I understand that excuse too. Earlier in my life I was asked to consider a leadership position in a women’s ministry organization. I felt totally inadequate. My reasons were many and also valid. I was too young (in my early 30’s) and my spiritual maturity did not match my enthusiasm. I still saw myself as the girl from a small farm who had lived most of her life in the country and this position was a chapter of an international organization that met in a larger city not far from me. (Yes, it was a “Frodo” moment.)

As I prayed about it for one of the only times in my life, I saw a clear picture as the Lord began to nudge me to accept. Some of it is too personal to share, but it involved seeing a stunningly beautiful dress the Lord had designed for me to wear and his disappointment were I not to accept what He was calling me to do.

Obedience can be hard, but failure to do so grieves the Lord. We also miss out on the opportunities that obedience sets in motion, the faith it develops by what we learn about Him as well as ourselves. But guess what? He has a purpose for asking us to do hard things.

“There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. Our ideas of what we can do or want to do are trivial; God’s ideas for us are grand.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

What truth there is in that! Who would have guessed he would have chosen a rag tag group of fishermen, a tax collector, and women to be the ones that would spread the gospel around the world? They seemed some of the least likely of the day. They often let him down with their unbelief and even betrayal, but yet He called them and used that call to shape them and now their lives, words, and testimonies help shape us more than 2,000 years later. That is a grand plan indeed.

I think Paul understood what the source of our adequacy is to be as he wrote to the church at Corinth:

“Not that we are sufficiently qualified in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency and qualifications come from God.”

2 Corinthians 3:5 (AMP)

“In the way of faith we do not escape because it is too much for us; we plunge into it because we are commanded and equipped. It is not our feelings that determine our level of participation in life, nor our experience that qualifies us for what we will do and be; it is what God decides about us.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

Let us never offer excuses to God for our lack of obedience as well as learn to know his voice so well, we recognize when it is He that is asking.

How does the Lord communicate with you?

If I asked you that over coffee, you would likely give me more than one answer. I would have multiple answers as well because He communicates with us in a myriad of ways and always has. And the BEST part about that is that He wants to communicate with us. The communication issues (if there are any) are on our part. That has been true since He created mankind.

A friend who is a professional photographer recently captured a sunset that is so brilliantly beautiful that words cannot do it justice. It was as if God painted on the canvas of the sky the deepest and brightest reds, oranges, yellows, and blues that a human mind can imagine and then kicked it up a notch above that.

I was not at the meadow where the photo was taken or even outdoors that evening, but when I saw the photo, I wondered how many of those who were out noticed the Lord’s finishing touches on creation for that day.

I sensed Him in worship on Sunday as we sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and a worship song about overcoming fear entitled “Stand in Your Love.” I heard Him in the pastor’s message from the book of John.

I felt Him in the embrace of my husband and in the warm conversation about Him with a friend over lunch.

I heard Him whispering to my heart as I slipped into bed and He had all of my attention.

You might agree with these examples and have many more to add, but then as I was reading in Exodus, I saw how He spoke to the Israelites. The story makes clear that they were frightened enough that they asked Him to only speak to Moses and let him tell them what they were to know.

Biblical references make clear God speaks in gentle breezes or roaring thundering sounds that can be deafeningly loud.

For the Israelites it was not only the ear-shattering volume, but the accompanying thunder, lightning, smoke and trumpet sound that added to their terror. Did God really want to strike terror into their hearts?

To answer that question, we would need to recall they had been steeped in a culture of idols that were inanimate and despite seeing the plagues in Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea they knew little about Him. They could not fathom his holiness or the power of all of who He was (and is). They also had not gotten in touch with their own sin and how impossible it is to be in God’s presence with sin clinging to any part of them (or us).

Every way the Israelites connected with God taught them more about who He was, but to grasp even the basic understanding would take a lot longer. That’s not unlike us when we first come to Him. Our minds are finite, and a lifetime is not enough to expose us to all of who He is. We will have eternity to delve into more and more of Him.

But even in the deafening sound, the whirlwind, the belly of the whale, the chariots of fire, the desert and wilderness, God was reaching out.

When Christ came to earth, we got a glimpse of the glory of God in human dress and when He ascended and the indwelling Holy Spirit became a part of all who would believe, He spoke in gentle ways, inviting us to come closer.  Even so Paul warned about quenching the Spirit.

All of this relates to our need to recognize and acknowledge our sinfulness and God’s holiness. He desires us to have a close relationship with Him, but also that our love for his grace would result in our obedience.

The Israelites were terrified of this deafening audible voice of God, but it began to result in a fear of displeasing Him as a result of a greater awareness of their sinfulness. They would need to experience the consequences of not remembering that more than a few times as they moved forward.

What drives my desire to be obedient and to sin less?

What reminds me of what response God desires from me?

The gentle voice of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I must never take advantage of his grace or allow my hearing to dull and my conscience to weaken when so great a love purchased my freedom at such a great price.

It is that gift that allows me to come into his presence at his invitation covered in robes washed white by the blood of Christ.

For many of you reading this title, you may recall it has a familiar ring to it. Some of you will identify the source because the film that featured the lines has been seen by millions of people since it was first released in 1980.

The Empire Strikes Back was a second in the initial series of the Star Wars movies that have captured the attention of viewers of varying ages and multiple generations since it was first released. If you know it well, you recall the movie begins scrolling with these words, “It is a dark time…” and continues a few lines later talking about a brave group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker.

Luke is young and passionate, self-confident, and eager, but his mentor, Ben Kenobi (better known as Obi-Wan), reminds him there is much he does not know to be a great warrior. He tells Luke he must travel and train with the greatest of trainers, Yoda, to become a true Jedi knight to face the evil Darth Vader. Luke seems skeptical but flies off to the planet in search of Yoda.

When Luke arrives to search for Yoda, nothing is as he expects. The planet is creepy at best and the expectation of what such a legendary Jedi knight would look like is shaken when Luke first meets Yoda. (A great way to remind us all not to be shaken by appearance or believe that is all there is to a person, or to a Jedi knight.)

Once the training commences Luke is not always convinced Yoda is as gifted as he truly is, nor does he recognize the wisdom and necessity of the training needed to use the power of a Jedi knight for good and not darkness.

One of the training tasks Yoda implements with Luke is asking him to lift something using only his mind and thoughts. It requires a lack of distraction and a great deal of belief that he can accomplish the task. Luke has some success but gets distracted when his space craft sinks into the water where it had first landed. Luke believes the spacecraft is lost, but consider the dialogue and the admonishment of Yoda in the situation:

“Luke: Oh, no! We’ll never get it out now!

Yoda: So certain, are you? Always with you, what cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?

Luke: Master, moving stones around is one thing, but this is… totally different!

Yoda: No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.

Luke: All right, I’ll give it a try.

Yoda: No! Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.

[Luke tries to use the Force to levitate his X-Wing out of the bog but fails in his attempt.]

Luke: I can’t. It’s too big.

Yoda: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.

Luke: You want the impossible. [sees Yoda use the Force to levitate the X-wing out of the bog and gets flustered when he does it] I don’t… I don’t believe it!

Yoda: That is why you fail.”

You may wonder what that has to do with the usual themes I write. Consider what I have put in italics in the dialogue above.

It contains principles for all who would believe and are called to be warriors for the cause of Christ. (Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit have power far beyond the mythical “Force” of the Star Wars epic series we enjoy.)

We also face an unseen dark force determined to erode any light emanating from the Godhead and shining through us. We (like Luke) can sometimes get ahead of ourselves and not recognize the power available to us is great but can only be wielded wisely as a result of training with a master warrior. Or we can be foolish and minimize the skill and tactics of the dark evil’s attempts to upend us and persuade is to leave the light and go “to the dark side.”

The more subtle weakness that can result in defeat is one less recognized by most of us. Yoda’s message is key: “Do or do not. There is no try.” You see Yoda knows the first step is to make a determined choice to do or not do what must be done. To say we will ‘try” does not show a determined belief and commitment to “do or do not” and that alone will result in a lack of success in battle, discipline, or life itself.

Fictional tales often show us a valuable lesson in life.

We too may see life around us not unlike the words scrolling at the beginning of the film – a dark time – and if we are to be light in the darkness and warriors for the good, our commitment must be sure and our belief unwavering.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”