September 6th

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

            On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.  Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.  He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Mark 11:12-14

            This seems extreme.  Jesus sees a tree that is not in season but decides to see if it has edible fruit anyway.  When He does not find any, He curses the tree and kills it.  Was He having a bad day?  Had Peter just asked Him another annoying question?

            When winter comes, fig trees drop all their leaves and stand bare throughout the season.  When spring comes, the leaves aggressively return and form such a dense canopy that nothing can grow beneath the tree’s branches.  The fruit quickly follows and so the appearance of leaves becomes the promise of fruit.  Not so for this tree.  For some reason the leaves had appeared but there was no fruit.  The promise of fruit was a lie and a fig tree that does not produce figs is a waste of resources that kills the plants around it.

            Appearances can be deceiving.  There are people and there are organizations and there are circumstances that look like they should be something positive and beneficial but instead are not.  Some things check all the boxes that we are looking for but are still not a good fit.

            For Jesus it was a fig tree in full bloom that had no fruit.  For us it was music lessons, specifically with drums.  My son was constantly pounding away on pots and pans and lids and boxes and cans when he was little.  He would sit on the kitchen floor in his diaper and set up a drumset for himself with eight different sized containers.  He found wood spoons or metal spoons or pencils or anything else that was straight and he would play the drums.  He was always playing new beats and whaling away in delight.  We decided to encourage this thing that he was so excited about so we got him a kids’ size drumset.  We got him drum sticks.  We looked into some drumming lessons from friends and then got some instructional videos so that he could actually learn some skills.  We sat with him and practiced with him and played tunes on different instruments for him so that he would have something to play along with…and what he really wanted to do was sit on our kitchen floor and arrange pots around him and bang on them.  He disassembled his drumset and turned the drums upside down and used them to carry his legos and then used the frame to build other things.  The drumsticks he loved and tried to use to hit everything and everyone…until we put a stop to that.  He did not want to be a drummer.  He just wanted to drum.

            Sometimes things seem so obvious.  The therapy seems like a natural fit.  The class seems like everything is just right.  The church has the right people and the right mission and the right location.  And then we find that appearances were deceiving…the fit is not quite right and the benefits are not what we were hoping for.  This is the time for prayer and discernment.  As parents we tend to fall into two camps.  We either drop something at the first sign of trouble and look for something ese that will be a better fit.  Or we doggedly stay, loyal to the end, and hope that things will change for the better.  I have found that both options have been appropriate at different times.  Ask God whether you should stay or go.  That applies to therapies.  That applies to churches.  That applies to schools.  That applies to lessons.  That applies to super cool drum sets.

            Scripture says that God will grant wisdom to anyone who asks for it.  To stay or go.  To invest or move on.  There are costs and benefits in both options and we need wisdom as we look at the choices.  Sometimes we find that the options that looked like the most natural fits are not working.  That is when we need to be able to hear from Jesus the most.

           

A moment to reflect:

What seemed like it would be a great solution only to be a less-than-ideal fit?  Should you stay or go?  Take a little while to ask Jesus that question.