Prickly Pears

“That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
​– Colossians 1:10
You desert rats already know this but prickly pears produce a red-purple fruit.  It is edible but it is covered with small spines that you have to peel off carefully to make sure you don’t get them in your mouth. But I think it is the sweetest food the desert makes. 
As I was running this morning, I looked at all these small little fruit on these tiny prickly pears and realized: the domesticated fruit isn’t nearly as good.  Not nearly.  Not as sweet or juicy.  Why?  I think it’s because they get watered – life is too easy for them and it affects the fruit.
The best fruit comes from the mature plants (not necessarily older but mature) that live in the desert. 
Like our lives.  The sweetest fruit -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control – come from “lack of water” in mature lives or suffering, longsuffering, and endurance in the lives of those who allow themselves to be matured in Christ.
To get that fruit in the desert, the rain has to come at the right time.  Little to no fruit grows in the driest years.  God know this.  Rain will come at the right time to our lives as well.  Ultimately, no matter how old the plant is or how much it has endured – the rain brings the fruit.  In my life to, no matter how old (not mature, in this case) I get or how much I endure – the rain brings the fruit.  And the rain is from God.  God brings the increase.

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