It is important to stay balanced. If we look at a tree in an orchard, it is taken care of by the gardener. How does the gardener take care of the tree? If the tree is left on its own it will grow many branches and use up all of its strength in growing branches.
My grandfather was a gardener for his whole life. He worked at a college in Utah running their experimental farm. When he visited my family once, many years ago, he told me about fruit trees. Their purpose is to bear fruit. If a tree is left alone, to its own devices, it will grow branches. Now, from the outside, not being a gardener, I thought that if there are more branches there will be more fruit. Right?
Wrong. The more branches that a tree grows, the more strength is drawn from the roots to support the branches. The strength is given in growing branches, not in growing fruit. So the key to getting fruit from a tree is to trim back the branches. You must reduce the strength output of the tree and re-focus its energy into growing fruit.
Trimming back the branches cannot be done all at once. If you cut off large sections of the tree it will shock the system and destroy the tree. You need to make the change a little bit at a time, consistently and surely. Picking and choosing which branches to trim off will result in a leaner tree with strength to grow fruit.
It is important to keep the branches and the roots balanced. A gardener will watch the tree to make sure that it stays balanced. If the strength of the roots overwhelms the tree, then lots of extra branches will grow. If the strength of the branches overwhelms the roots, the tree will begin to die. It becomes top-heavy and draws too much strength from the roots and it is not sustainable. To survive it must be trimmed back.
Wrong. The more branches that a tree grows, the more strength is drawn from the roots to support the branches. The strength is given in growing branches, not in growing fruit. So the key to getting fruit from a tree is to trim back the branches. You must reduce the strength output of the tree and re-focus its energy into growing fruit.
Trimming back the branches cannot be done all at once. If you cut off large sections of the tree it will shock the system and destroy the tree. You need to make the change a little bit at a time, consistently and surely. Picking and choosing which branches to trim off will result in a leaner tree with strength to grow fruit.
It is important to keep the branches and the roots balanced. A gardener will watch the tree to make sure that it stays balanced. If the strength of the roots overwhelms the tree, then lots of extra branches will grow. If the strength of the branches overwhelms the roots, the tree will begin to die. It becomes top-heavy and draws too much strength from the roots and it is not sustainable. To survive it must be trimmed back.
Now what is the application of the fruit tree to life? Each person has the potential to bring forth fruit - results. Sometimes we get lazy and let life just happen. We grow lots of branches, we start lots of different things, but nothing really happens. When we get so busy but we are not really productive, we need to look at our purpose. If we are to bring forth fruit, we need to trim back some of the branches. We need to limit the directions our strength goes in order to produce results. Trimming back sections of our life is painful. Cutting branches from a tree shocks that system. So does cutting out ineffective portions of our life. This must be done with wisdom so that you don’t shock the system and end up even less effective than you were before.
Start by examining what you want from life. What are you here for? What talents do you have? What people do you know that have similar or complementary talents? What would you do if you worked with them? What could you produce? With these answers in hand, look at your life. What are you doing to produce this fruit (or results)? Are there activities or thoughts that are taking your energy away from being productive? Rest and relaxation is important, but it should never be your primary focus. That leads to laziness and lots of branches growing. Then you don’t produce anything of value.
My grandfather said that a tree with lots of branches will only produce small fruit. By trimming back the branches you get larger fruit. Even when the fruit is beginning to grow, you don’t keep everything. You go and prune the smaller fruit in order that the tree may give more strength to growing the larger fruit. This results in juicier apples.
So even when you start seeing results, you have to determine which results are the best and drop the lower performers to grow stronger fruit.
Start by examining what you want from life. What are you here for? What talents do you have? What people do you know that have similar or complementary talents? What would you do if you worked with them? What could you produce? With these answers in hand, look at your life. What are you doing to produce this fruit (or results)? Are there activities or thoughts that are taking your energy away from being productive? Rest and relaxation is important, but it should never be your primary focus. That leads to laziness and lots of branches growing. Then you don’t produce anything of value.
My grandfather said that a tree with lots of branches will only produce small fruit. By trimming back the branches you get larger fruit. Even when the fruit is beginning to grow, you don’t keep everything. You go and prune the smaller fruit in order that the tree may give more strength to growing the larger fruit. This results in juicier apples.
So even when you start seeing results, you have to determine which results are the best and drop the lower performers to grow stronger fruit.
Note: This post draws reference from Jacob 5 in The Book of Mormon.
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