What Happens to Bad Pecan Trees

For four-and-a-half years, I've had a bad pecan tree in my parsonage back yard. I mean, it hasn't produced one decent pecan in the past four seasons, that anyone could find. The pastor who lived here before me told me it was a bad tree before I ever moved in. The tree looks sickly, even.

Imagine my surprise then, a week ago today, when I stepped on a supposedly "bad" pecan shell lying on the ground, only to see inside it a large, beautiful, and tasty pecan. A good pecan from a bad tree was a find, for sure. Of course, I went looking for more good pecans on the tree. And guess what? I found some! Quite a few GOOD pecans were just waiting to be shaken down. There were still some bad ones, too, but still...

I am reminded of Jesus' parable about the man who had a fig tree that didn't produce fruit for three years. He ordered the gardener to chop it down. But the gardener begged for one more year to care for the tree, to hopefully make it healthy enough to produce figs. (Luke 13: 6-9).

Four four-and-a-half years, I've looked at that pecan tree and seen only a waste of space. How often do we look at the world that way? How often do we look at an individual, a church, a nation, or a group of people and see only something that doesn't produce good fruit? How often do we then think it isn't good for anything but to cut down?

I'm surely glad that the Creator sees something else in us supposedly "fruitless" or "bad" creatures. Who knew that, with time, the parsonage pecan tree would give me tasty treats? I guess sometimes there's more to "bad" people, churches, communities, nations, or groups than meets the eye. Perhaps sometimes, we must exercise a little patience and wait to see what the Good Gardener can do with some faithful TLC.

For four-and-a-half years, I've lived with a bad tree. Now I'm eating good fruit. Who knew? Well, Someone did. Thank God.