I was reading Ashley W's short post about what she perceived as a generation gap between her and the older members of her meeting.  The topic seemed familiar but being a 70 year old convinced Quaker I knew it wasn't age alone that she was running into but something more problematical.

In the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, starting at the 6th verse, Jesus tells the story of a farmer who goes out to get figs from a fig tree and finds it barren.  It's a big tree with a lot of leaves but no figs.  The farmer tells his worker to cut it down as it's a waste of space.  The worker asks for time to fertilize the tree and if it doesn't bare fruit within a year then he will cut it down.

Most Christian journeys are like that fig tree.  Early in our walk with Jesus we are excited about God and we bare fruit.  God moves in our lives and we love to share the testimonies of what God has done for us.  But as the years go by we get to become more involved in doing things that seem worthy but are not necessarily what God is doing at that particular time and our Testimonies age.  We become like that Fig tree.  We know all the traditions; all the queries;  all the hymns; all the members of yearly meeting; we sit in a place of honor;  but we are not bearing fruit.  We can't feed the hungry who come in to our meeting hungering, thirsting, seeking more of God.

The bible tells us that unless the Lord builds the house all who labor do so in vain.  Like that fig tree we are in need of constant fertilization if we are going to bear fruit.  Some of us attend meetings that are located in flood plains that get fertilized on a regular basis when the river of the Holy Spirit overflows it's banks.  But some of us attend meetings that have built levees to protect us from such floods.

We need to constantly ask ourselves if we are bearing fruit and if we are getting enough fertilizer and if not, why not?

The following is a little song I wrote which I use as a prayer to ask God to not cut me down.

http://www.geezers4jesus.com/musicfiles/Dung_me_Lord_Dung_me.mp3