12/07/2024
HAPPY ADVENT SEASON BFG Ministry!
As I stepped into our backyard, my eyes fell on the overgrown bush that once held my hopes of becoming an apple and avocado tree. Now, it was an unruly shrub, its branches stretching perilously close to the power lines. Looking up at it, I thought to myself, This is going to take a lot of work—too much, in fact. I decided then and there to take it out and replace it with cement, which is far easier to manage.
I hadn’t watered those trees in quite some time. Life had kept me busy. But how, then, had they grown so big?
You see, I planted these two trees about 6–7 years ago, a gift from a good friend. Out of that friendship, I placed them in the narrow flower bed at the back of our yard and watered them faithfully, hoping to see blossoms by the fifth year. But no flowers ever came. Eventually, my enthusiasm waned, and I watered them less and less. Disappointment had set in. I had lost hope that they would ever bear fruit.
Then, one day, as I was cleaning the yard, something caught my eye. High on one of the branches, I noticed a flash of red. My first thought was that it was a small ball, maybe something a neighbor had thrown that had lodged itself in the tree. But as I got closer, to my surprise and joy, I realized it was a small red apple.
Overwhelmed with excitement, I called my kids over to confirm it. Sure enough, it was an apple—a wonderful, unexpected gift.
This discovery happened a few days before Thanksgiving in the holiday season's busy hustle-and-bustle. What a joy to bring this Thanksgiving gift into the first week of Advent, a week dedicated to the theme of “Hope.” That tiny apple not only restored my hope in the tree but also reminded me of hope in everything around me.
Sometimes, our eyes and minds deceive us, making us give up on hope when we measure it solely by our own efforts. But this first week of Advent reminds us that true hope is found in trusting the Lord. He brings to fruition what we plant, even when we least expect it.
Just as I was ready to give up on my apple tree, it was at that very moment that hope revealed itself—hidden among the chaos of overgrown branches. If we take the time to look beyond the mess, we will find God’s hope. Often, it’s precisely when we are about to give up that miracles happen.
