My husband is known for his “green thumbs”.  He is able to make something grow where many have tried and failed.  Recently he has tried to grow some purple carrots.  You’d think growing a vegetable as common and humble as the carrot is simple, but apparently not.  His carrots resembled beets, only they were the ugliest, most gnarly roots I have ever seen.  They were even unfit for the juicer, as they were so gnarly that it was impossible to get rid of the sand and dirt trapped in the folds.

I did some research and learned that in order to grow healthy, straight carrots, you have to dig down deep.  You have to remove every stone, stick and piece of debris you can find, as even the smallest obstacle will stop the carrot from growing straight.  This was the mistake my husband made – he did not go deep enough when he prepared the seedbed.  The deeper soil was still full of rocks and debris and that caused his carrots to grow into such grotesque-looking fruit.

Our hearts are seedbeds too.  God says in Jeremiah 2:21

21 But I was the one who planted you, choosing a vine of the purest stock—the very best.  How did you grow into this corrupt wild vine? (NLT)
21 Yet I had planted you [O house of Israel] a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned into degenerate shoots of wild vine alien to Me?  Amplified

The Lord is speaking to the house of Israel, and to us.  He asks a very valid question – If I have planted you as a noble vine, from altogether pure and incorruptible seed, how did you become gnarly, altogether not resembling Me?

The answer I believe lies in the seedbed, with my husband’s carrots.  We settle for shallow.  Shallow is easy, we do not have to turn over much soil, we do not have to remove too many stones and we are lazy.  Shallow means safe also.  If you go into the shallow end of a pool, or a river, you do not have to use any energy to stay head above water.  There is a bottom under your feet; it takes no effort and no trust to stay alive.  Even as Christians we spend our lives in the shallow end, where it takes little faith and even less effort.  We allow the pastor to take responsibility for our spiritual wellbeing – after all that’s why we tithe – so that he or she can be paid to teach us.  We cultivate shallow friendships – they are easy to maintain and you can walk away as soon as it requires too much effort.  We skim over the Word of God, shallow reading does not require much contemplation, we get to pick and choose a few favorite verses and we disregard the ones that demand that we change our selfish ways.  Shallow says it is OK to demand to be first, have your own way and walk away when the going gets tough.

We refuse to get rid of the stones that hide beneath the surface and we try to convince those that God has prepared to eat the fruit that we have cultivated, that it’s good for eating – hoping they would be deceived as much as we are in denial.  Isn’t that what fruit is for?  Food?  When the Lord calls us to bear fruit, is it not so that the lost and hungry can come to us and be nourished?  Find something healthy and nourishing to eat?

For some time I have had some ideas tumbling around in my head and it all came to a head when one morning, just as I was waking up, heard Jesus say “I am the Fruit”.  This single phrase has led me on a treasure hunt and I suspect the end of this search is a long way off.  In my spirit I sense that this phrase spoken into my barely conscious mind had something profound to do with my search for the deep things of God.

For some time now I have been dissatisfied with being shallow, thinking shallow, believing shallow, living shallow.  Going deep…this is something I have been asking the Lord, to take me deeper.  I read Psalm 42
1 As the hart pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for You, O God.
2 My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
7 [Roaring] deep calls to [roaring] deep at the thunder of Your waterspouts; all Your breakers and Your rolling waves have gone over me. (This is how I felt – totally overwhelmed)
8 Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God my Rock, Why have You forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
10 As with a sword [crushing] in my bones, my enemies taunt and reproach me, while they say continually to me, Where is your God?
11 Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God. (AMP)

And so, little by little a puzzle is pieced together for me.  As a child of the Most High God, I am called to bear fruit, so that a dying, malnourished world can come and eat, and be made whole.

In order for me to grow fruit that suits my origin, nobility, I have to cultivate the soil of my heart, so that the seedbed that will nourish and grow the incorruptible seed that God has planted, is free of debris, not only on the surface, but deep down. It’s not my “deep” calling to God’s, it’s His “deep” calling me!  It’s not me desperate to look like Him, it’s Him desperate for me to look like His Son.

1 Corinthians 2:10 in the Message version reads:  The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along.

The way that I cultivate deep down, is to hope in God, to wait expectantly on Him and in all things to praise Him.  The word “praise” in the Hebrew is “Yadah”, which can also be translated as “giving thanks”.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 in the Amplified version reads:  Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful andgive thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will].

And so I discovered the secret of going deep, deep enough to be able to cultivate the kind of fruit that resembles Jesus, the incorruptible Seed from which we have been generated.  It is to give thanks in all things.  So I am on a quest – to find ways to thank the Lord in everything, whether good or bad, like Jesus did.  So, Jesus is indeed the fruit that we cultivate when we choose to live gratefully.

Let me finish with the example Jesus set for us.  Matthew 26:26

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and, praising God, gave thanks and asked Him to bless it to their use, and when He had broken it, He gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is My body.

Jesus, knowing exactly what is about to come, praises God and gives thanks.  He digs down deep, recognises the grace of God contained in the hard, in the difficult and He gives thanks for the bread, the humble, the simple…the bread, the blessing from the Father’s hand…and He prepares to be the First Fruit.