Lessons from the Farm #1: Thinning for Abundance

Our family is blessed to be able to spend a couple weeks each summer at Sweet Rose Farm in Highland County, VA. Every summer we “unplug” for most of the day to get reconnected with one another, creation and the Creator.

Working the farm always offers valuable lessons about a life well lived. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours thinning apples. I clipped hundreds of apples that fell to the ground. In the beginning of this thinning session, my heart broke with every clip. I love to till the ground, pull weeds and vines, and support God’s beautiful gift of creation and new life. How could I interfere with this gift?

Yet, as I carefully moved from branch to branch and tree to tree, it was clear that if I didn’t thin some branches, they would break. Some apple blossoms yielded 5-6 apples. If a small branch had several blossoms, there were more than 20 apples to a branch. Further the end blossoms that had five or more fruit left the apples smashed together, with little room to grow, and provided perfect environments for bugs to nest and feast.

I realized that we are like that apple tree. Sometimes we need thinning to produce lush fruit, prevent our body and spirit from breaking and diminish the growth of unhealthy and unkind habits and coping mechanisms. I considered the fruit of the spirit from Galatians, and realized that indeed, spiritual fruit does not grow from doing everything but rather by intentionally nurturing less, but deeper, relationships and gifts.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited,provoking and envying each other.” ~Galatians 5

Paul suggests that this spiritual fruit grows after the “flesh has been crucified with its passions and desires”. Consumerism and the belief that more is always better is one such passion we Americans may need to hand over to the Holy Spirit.  Of course thinning always hurts at first. Often times it isn’t until you step back and have some perspective that you realize just how much healthier you are with less in your life. Just ask the apple tree….

What could you thin from your life to produce more lush, abundant spiritual fruit?