Fruit Picking in the Garden

Keeping ourselves focused is not easy. 

Our group went out for fruit picking in Coatesville just outside Auckland. To enter the orchard, we paid each a fee which would be deductible from the fruits we brought out. The fee also authorized us to eat as many apples as we wanted but only within the orchard. Once inside, we saw the hundreds of apple trees mostly with ripe fruits hanging all over the branches.  It could have taken us less than ten minutes to pick the finest apples; but then we stayed inside for an hour.  Instead of crunching apples, a number of us ate the few enticing pears along the way.

The youth in our group walked deeper into the orchard wanting to see nectarine fruits they were told were within the vicinity. Failing to find nectarine, the entire group settled for sometime beside an enclosure where two beautiful horses were grazing.  And to think that we had not even picked enough apples to fill the small plastic bags given to each one of us! It wasn’t until the last few minutes that we raced to pick the fruits to keep our appointment with the others who waited outside the orchard.  As the cashier inspected our harvest, we found out that there were unripe apples picked, while some bags weighed less than what we paid for.
The experience reminded me, in a different light, of Adam and Eve who took a fatally wrong turn in the Garden of Eden. With God’s gifts at their disposal, the couple proceeded to pick the forbidden fruit of the tree where the serpent tempted them.  All the finest fruits were for their picking, but they ate instead the one that they had been warned against by God. “[The woman] saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious...so she took some of the fruit and ate it.” (Genesis 3:6)

We must come to realize that once we are born, we are given the gift of life which is itself a personal Garden of Eden for each one of us.  God wants only the best for us – to fulfil a life for His glory and to return to Him in His Eternal Kingdom.  “[God] has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first instalment that guarantees everything He has promised us.” (2 Corinthians 1:22) Though we know that if we focus our lives to serve the Lord and His children we can attain eternal life, we get distracted by a lot of things.  Satan and his demons want to take our eyes off God by tempting us with the forbidden apples of the present: worldly things.  If we are not spiritually strong, the devil will succeed and soon we commit sin and we distance ourselves from God.  This happened to Adam and Eve – as it may have occurred in our lives.
Every day, we are bombarded by distractions and temptations. There are even times that we think what we are doing are for the Lord, when in fact they are not. Such occur when we become too indulged in our work, we become too confined to our interests or we become too busy in things other than God and our family.
Pause for a while; imagine for a moment that you are in the Garden of Eden.  Feel the presence of the Lord through the beauty of Paradise.  Pay attention to His Word. Be deaf to the call of Satan.  As you reach the end of the Garden, the trumpets sound and angels open the pearly gates of Heaven.  Inside, you will hunger no more for the fruit of God’s love will fill your soul forever. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

by Mel Libre