A fruit harvest...

...I am reading this book called Finding Common Ground by Tim Downs and I have come to a very interesting point. When we think about reaping a harvest, what kind of harvest are we thinking of? A wheat harvest or a fruit harvest. The reason it is essential to determine which one we find our selves amidst is that we must reap in different ways...the methods are quite different.

"In a wheat harvest, the grain is harvested in a short period of time. There is a small window of opportunity before weather or blight destroys the crop where it stands...the reaper passes through the fields, the sheaves are bundled, the fields are cleared. A wheat harvest is a thorough, final, consummate event.

But Jesus also spoke of people as though they were a harvest of fruit. A fruit harvest is a very different kind of harvest--a patient, gradual, ongoing process. Though there is a harvest season, th fruit harvest takes place over a much longer period of time. It's no accident that a fruit grower is sometimes known as a "vinedresser." He can't simply walk out into the vineyard with his sickle and mow everything down. The vinedresser always enters the vineyard prepared to do a variety of jobs. He looks first for ripe fruit; where he finds none, he "dresses" the vine. He pulls a weed, fertilizes, cultivates, ties up a sagging branch. Later, a different worker may come behind him. She may find a thick, hardy vine where he tied up a feeble twig. She may find ripe fruit where he found none. No matter. At the harvest celebration, the vinedresser and the reaper will be glad together."


In this book, he is describing America as a Postmodern society. Although he is speaking of America here, he is also speaking of France, as I would classify them as Postmodern as well. So, I believe Paris is a fruit harvest and I am just one vinedresser walking through the vineyard. I need to be prepared to do a variety of jobs, depending on the plant/fruit. And I will be relying on the Spirit to show me what needs to be done.


"...we should enter the vineyard looking for--anticipating--ripe fruit to pick. That, after all, is the final goal. But we'll be careful not to bruise the fruit that's unready to pick. We'll remember that fruit harvesting is a gentle, gradual, ongoing process that requires patience and faith."