The Conchshell Chronicles - Our Newsletter

Cultivating Fruit

I have small grove in our front yard. 5 trees: 2 Persian Limes, 2 Meyers Lemons, 1 Mandarin. After many years of little to no fruit, last year was a bumper crop! Sweet Lemons! Juicy Limes! Tart Mandarins!

Its February and the flowers are back on three of the trees! I’m so excited to see the fruit grow, knowing that we will get to enjoy each one with our family and friends.

The Lord is teaching me a lot about cultivation of fruit. It all started two years ago when I realized that I had to put fertilizer around the bottom of the trees. A friend told me that Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are needed at critical stages for the flowers to form, then the fruit to develop, and reach maturity. I pondered that information.

This morning I asked our men’s group this question:

“What if a guy from Mars came to Earth and observed the Christmas holiday in the United States. What would he conclude is the purpose of this celebration?”

Many about the circle responded that materialism, drinking, and eating were what this holiday season focuses on. Then my friend Melih spoke up. “I am that man from Mars. When I emigrated from Turkey when I was in college, I had no idea what Christmas was, but after a few years of parties, and people giving me gifts, I concluded that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a continuous holiday focused on having a good time and buying things for friends and family. I knew nothing about Jesus and his coming to Earth.”

Working in a “5^th World” jungle environment with a primitive people group called Miskito Indians has served to alter my inward framing and existence and my conduct thereafter.

My driving force is a knowing that I am where I should be, doing what I should be doing and becoming more like the One I do it all for.  I am often puzzled by the world around me that says, “I do not need a Supreme Perfect Being” telling me what to do …I can handle my life just fine.”  The impossibilities of my life do NOT allow me the luxury of even hinting that I can handle life and all of the complexities I am faced with.   One moment to the next I am often overcome with the gratefulness I possess for having a Divine Perfect Entity in my corner to guide my varied multi-faceted needy existence.

Above the door to my junior high school in Reynoldsburg Ohio was chiseled the words “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

At the time I thought “How nice!”, and that year I learned how to do differential equations, and other random stuff. Later on I learned from my chemistry teacher, Mrs. Datish, that an   experiment had been done by   Miller and Urey at the University of Chicago in 1952 that proved that life had originated in a primordial swamp when a bolt of lighting had struck and formed amino acids. During my university years I learned that many smart men did not believe in God, and that the Bible was a really book of mythology and philosophy that I could not trust. I also learned that Christian morality didn’t really fit into my world, and that I could decide what was right and wrong.