He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” vss. 8-9
Luke 13:6-9
It’s always tempting to think that we’ve got plenty of time in life for repentance. It’s one of those things that we put off, mainly because it’s so hard. Once we’ve established patterns for relating with the world, we grow comfortable, and if given an option, even if we don’t like the things we’ve been doing, we’d just as soon continue living as we have in the past. Jesus certainly knew that propensity, after all it’s been around from the beginning. In the parable of the fig tree he lets us know that this attitude is nothing less than insanity, and our opportunities for repentance actually have an expiration date. The good news is that there is a grace period. The fig tree got one year of tender care accompanied by a healthy dose of natural fertilizer.
The problem is that none of us knows how much more time we have to make the changes the Spirit is recommending. That’s true in relationships as well as in the span of our lives. Someday we’re all going to run out of time, and it would be a shame if we never got around to repentance, and no one ever saw the best of what we were called to be!
Thought for the Day: What’s the point of postponing change?
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