Ten years or more ago I bought three mini rose bushes, and none are living now do to cold weather. These rose bushes not a hardy plant for our area. Yet I got them on a good sale day. The local grocery store had gotten a shipment in and they had gotten frostbite from being outside. The odds of their survival by the way they looked, was not good. In fact I looked at all the frostbite and wondered if they could live. Well they were on sale and what is a dollar back then but a loaf of toast right. No it much more then that it a dollar that could go on a pot beans. I looked at the three mini rose bushes and said three dollars for plants that might not make it. I decided to buy them and give them a chance.

I took the three mini rose bushes hope and trimmed all the frost bitten areas away. Not much was left and still I wonder could these bushes live. A little plant food and a little water soon brought life back to the roses. As they began to grow I finally had my husband dig three holes, and I gentle put them in the ground, wondering still how long they would live. These three mini roses bushes graced my yard for five years. Perhaps they would of lived longer if I brought them in before the harsh winter that took them out had gotten them they still be alive. Yet one never knows with plants whether they make it or not, especially where I live. Winters use to be much crueler in the mountains, but global warming changed all that. Those rose bushes still would not make it in forty below zero, Fahrenheit weather, so I was bound sooner or later to have frozen bushes, but how long would they fight to survive. Tender care brings forth good fruit, or in this case beautiful roses.

The gardener can protect a plant, water it and see if it will grow but even he knows that it just might not survive. Yet the life of tender care might mean good production of life from a tree or bush. In scripture plants represent human life or at least in this passage. Jesus wants to take us and plant us in his word and bring forth a change in our life. God cast out Cain from his sight, but he produced offspring that did not follow the ways of God. Cain family died with the flood. Noah family was intermixed with Cain I have to do more research. Yet there is point we all produce good and bad fruit in our life. Pruning is a necessary to bare more fruit, if left not pruned, or clipped flowers/fruit will not produce well. God wants to do the clipping of the sin from each of our life, so we can produce good fruit. God word through Christ took the outcast of our world and taught the scripture in away they would understand. The fruit of Christ came forth with life flowing freely from it; bring forth the hope of better tomorrow and heavens gate open wide to those that abide in Jesus.

The outcasts are the people who are alienated from God. My father, mother and sister family, all live many miles from me. It been sometime since I spent any quality time with them. Feeling more alienated now with each passing year. It is the miles and distance that makes one realize how far one lives from another. It feeling of not knowing when the next time you visit it might be one’s last, so you strive to make each visit the best you can. Alienation from God is far worst then family, yet family pulls at the heartstrings in a very different way. One refuses to hear God for a time, one’s life is going to be a mess. It is a miracle if God even allows one that space between Him and us. Israel in the wilderness need space before grabbing onto the promise of the Promise Land, yet it alienate those that had gone from Egypt to the door of the promise land, from entering in. The door of heaven shut to them, because of a lack of faith, after all they had seen. Yet these that were shut out bore fruit in their children, who entered the Promise Land. How long does one have to be alienated to realize the need of God and his power is sufficient in our lives to conquer the mountains in our life? A tender plant needs care, but it cast out it might still bring forth fruit in a compost pile. My dad when I was little had a compost pile on the edge of the garden. Any bad vegetable was toss there as well as peelings from vegetables. This pile still produced plants. Why is anyone surprised if one planted in the word of God does not bring forth fruit even if the person lands up in the compost pile? There are seeds there that sprout from rotten fruit. People need to wake up and realize that every rotten apple has potential in the hands of God. In the hands of God, he will bring forth life and liberty to the believer. Jesus took the outcast and seen the potential of being part of the family of God. He did not reject the religious leaders, but he corrected them. Jesus brought forth fruit with his death and resurrection. With Christ death a Roman soldier said this must have been the Son of God. Without giving a person a chance to change, one will never see the hope. Yet the one with hope was Christ. God sent the people in the wilderness once more, but opportunity for change, but the lost the earthly promise in process all but Caleb and one other, who had faith God could do anything.

Dear Heavenly Father give us the reassurance of your pruning when we fail to produce fruit of faith, hope and love. In Jesus precious name, Amen.