Withered Fig Trees

  • Mike Rydman
  • Dec 31, 2007

Withered Fig Trees

 

2007 has been a year of searching for me. My prayer journal is full of times when I have begged God for clarity and vision, and yet it can still seem somewhat fuzzy.

 

Since Soteria Church was initiated in 2005 I have been asking God to reveal His will and direction for our church, and for my role in leading this work. While I remain convinced that Jesus has called us to have a unique and powerful presence in our community, the nuts and bolts of that presence still escape me.

 

As is my habit I continue to take "renewal days" each month where I draw away to find solitude and a lack of distraction. I may go up to Kayak Point, somewhere along the Snohomish River, or down to the beach with my kayak. I go to pray and to listen. I write what I think I'm hearing and learning. I read whatever portions of Scripture Jesus puts into my head to read.

 

I also continue to be a devoted morning devotions guy. Being the creature of habit that I am, I find that mornings work best for me to spend time with God in His Word and in prayer. While some people might find my morning devotions to be too regimented and mechanistic, it works for me, and satisfies my soul.

 

But...God's specific will for our church can still seem fuzzy to me. God's will is not fuzzy. I am! I am rarely convinced that what I think I'm hearing from God is in fact what He is actually saying.

 

This morning I stumbled upon this:

 

In Mark 11, Jesus had walked up to a fig tree that was not producing any figs. Jesus cursed the tree by saying, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." The next day Jesus' disciples passed by the tree and saw that it had withered away to its roots. Peter, always the first one to say what the others were thinking made mention the withered tree to Jesus. Jesus' response is more than interesting.

 

"And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.'" Mark 11:22-25

 

Now it must be said that Jesus didn't have any personal dislike for fig trees. He did make fig trees after all. Jesus was in fact using the withered fig tree as a picture of Israel, God's people who had all the trappings of religion but no lasting fruit. They were a religious people, but not a transformed people. The withering fig tree was an analogy of a withering nation that had not responded to God's grace with devoted obedience.

 

But rather than explain all that to His disciples, Jesus instead chose to respond to Peter's observation by talking about the role of faith in prayer. Jesus was not expounding on what some have mistakenly taken to be the "prosperity gospel," meaning you can be as prosperous as your faith will allow. What Jesus was talking about is how an absence of doubt and an unwavering trust in God's ability to accomplish the humanly impossible is essential to effective prayer. Jesus even tells his disciples to believe that they have already received whatever they request in prayer. Faith accepts as now what it waits upon the future for.

 

However, it didn't end here, as nice and tidy as that might have been. Jesus then goes on to talk about the relationship that forgiveness has to our faith and to our prayers; and He's quite clear in doing so. Jesus states that our forgiving others is essential to our being forgiven by our Father in heaven, and, given the context, to our prayers being answered.

 

So I now find myself at the end of 2007 asking God if there is anyone or anything in my life I have been unwilling to forgive. This is not to say I don't have a memory. I do. But today I am asking God to reveal any pockets of resentment, bitterness or an unforgiving spirit in my heart that may be blocking my ability to hear God's directives to me. I really want to know.

 

I don't want a withered heart that asks God to speak to me, to lead me while I harbor rebellion in deepest self. Like you, I want to hear what God is saying, and hear it clearly.

 

May this next year be the time when we as Soteria Church and me as Mike Rydman hear God, and respond with joyful obedience and unwavering faith.