Self-Serving Or Helping Others

Milk & Honey Life Moment

March 3, 2008

Healthy Plants

I recently noticed something true of healthy fruit trees and flowering plants; their product is something they don’t use. In other words, the fruit and flowers do not benefit the plant from which they spring. Fruit nourishes other species besides the tree on which it grows. Orange, lemon, and apple trees do not need their fruit for their own survival. The same is true of flowering plants. Flowers enliven their surroundings, beautify our homes, and accompany messages of love and comfort, but they are of no use to the plant from which it is plucked. Even the pollen of the flower is carried to other plants to help them out.

In the parable of the sower in Luke 8:1-15, the seed that was sown on good ground obviously grew into healthy, productive plants because the outcome was fruit. Jesus explains that the sower planted the Word of God and those who received the word were compared to the healthy plants that produced fruit.

Does your life produce anything that is not for you? Are all your activities self-serving rather than being focused on service to others? Fruit that springs from a healthy spiritual life is not needed for your own nourishment. When your sustenance comes from being planted in Christ, that which springs from your life becomes nourishment for others. No matter how much is “plucked” from you, as long as you remain planted in the fertile soil of God’s word, there will always be more you joyfully have to offer.

Sharon Norris Elliott
The Milk and Honey Life Retreat