Soul Scientist

Matthew 7:14 PHILLIPS “Go in by the narrow gate. For the wide gate has a broad road which leads to disaster and there are many people going that way. The narrow gate and the hard road lead out into life and only a few are finding it.”

Even when I was a little bitty girl, I knew to walk right behind my daddy in the garden and fields. Granted, I couldn’t match his speed or stride, but I sure tried to match his steps. I had to walk behind him because of the narrow rows between the crop plants. We also didn’t walk next to each other because I couldn’t hold his hands always full of tools. Or better yet, later in the growing season, his hands were full of buckets overflowing the goodness “we’d” just picked. (Note: I use the collective “we” in the previous sentence because it was Daddy doing the picking with me asking all the questions while playing with bugs or making mudpies.)

Two things that haven’t changed for me since I was that little bitty girl; I’m still asking questions and making mudpies. Many of the questions are still those same why, what, how, when, who, and where’s I used to ask in the garden or field when walking behind my daddy. But now I can officially refer to my mudpies as soil samples and the daddy I’m walking behind and peppering with questions is my Abba, better known as my Father-God-Daddy.

Yet now, I understand the importance of staying on those paths between the rows – to keep from trampling the growing shoots as another means of tending the much-hoped-for fruits. I also understand the reasoning for narrow paths – to maximize plant numbers for a greater number of those much-hoped-for fruits. Notice the same goal here – optimal fruit production, both in quantity and quality.

My Abba doesn’t want me to have a few or some or even a good amount of fruit harvested from the farm of my life; He wants much fruit, like He tells me in John 15:5b NIV  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. That much fruit of overflowing bushel baskets groaning under their weight of delicious bounty. That sweet and juicy much fruit as displayed in one of my parents’ favorite pictures of me as that little bitty girl who ate a bite out of every peach in the basket while the juice dripped in a mess of sticky delight splattered all over my mostly-toothless grin toddler face, arms, legs, and dress.

That’s the kind of fruit my Abba wants to grow in each of us as Christians – fruit that delights in both the tasting of it and the telling about it to any and all who will stop to sample or listen. That kind of fruit is distinctive and demonstrative in its bountiful love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). For that kind of fruit is only harvested from a life that walks the narrow path behind our Father-God-Daddy all the while asking questions of Him, whether from suffering or in satisfaction. Sure, our speed and stride probably differ from His and from each other. After all, He has made each of us fearfully and wonderfully unique unto His Image (see Psalm chapter 139). But our steps should match His on that narrow path through the plants. For His steps will never trample tender shoots of a growing Christ-likeness but always tend to the needs of a fearful or once-thought-forsaken young Christ-follower. He knows the needs of each of us; He meets the needs of all of us. There’s plenty of room in His garden or field for all of us to thrive, just like He’s wanted even before He planted that first garden at creation (see 2 Peter 3:9 and Genesis chapter 2).

As importantly, His hands aren’t full of tools or buckets but are full with us – in prayer, path-making, perseverance, and patience. And His Heart is full with love for us – at all times and in all ways, even if my current growing season isn’t full of fruit from my own lack of obedience. His love isn’t a gift dependent on us. Rather, it’s a gift prompting the desire for much fruit to be borne in us. For when we are delighting ourselves in Him on the narrow paths, He promises us the desires of our hearts which is the desire of His heart – much fruit (see Psalm 37:4).

Dear Abba, thank You that You’ve put me here for this moment and Your purpose. Please help me walk close right up behind You on the narrow path. Please help me to tend, not trample. Please help me bear that much fruit that both of us long for in my life. Thank You that You’re always gonna be right here with me working for what will be the bountifully good and plentiful fruit.

In the strong Name of Jesus,

Amen.

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Written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2024.