The Lesson of the Banana

When I was visiting Centro Christiano de Alabanza in Costa Rica 5 plus years ago, we spent an afternoon with their school faculty at a Banana Plantation near the Atlantic coast. When we first came into the plantation, we could see the trees growing bananas… each trunk had one huge bunch of bananas encased in a blue plastic bag open on the bottom. The bag had small slits, so air could go in and out, but insects couldn’t. I learned that each banana tree grew for 9 months and produced one bunch of bananas; then it died, and new ones come up from around it. When they cultivated bananas, they always had one stalk to carry the fruit, which would die when finished, and a “follower” stalk coming to produce fruit 9 months later. There are some obvious lessons that parallel Colossians 1:6-- NIV-- 6 All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.

The gospel is bearing fruit—like the banana tree. Earlier Paul had written the Colossians that the gospel was the good news about faith, hope, and love available, as he tells in verse 6 through God’s grace—not our own effort. All around us the gospel is bearing fruit on the stalks of those we follow.

This gospel fruit, however, was not just a local fruit, but universal—available all over the world produced everywhere God’s good news of grace is active.

And, like the banana tree, there was death in the process. The main stalk gives its life to produce fruit, then dies. Jesus died for us so He could live in us and produce this fruit—faith, hope, and love, and that these three would permeate our relationships and, like the banana tree, spring off into other lives. The lesson of the banana and the lesson of Jesus is one: There is always some sort of dying to produce fruit.

The High Cost of Shining

Shining is always costly.  Light comes only at the cost of that which produces it.  An unlit candle does no shining.  Burning must come before shining. We cannot be of great use to others without cost to ourselves.  Burning suggests suffering.  We shrink from pain..."The glory of tomorrow is rooted in the drudgery of today."  Many want the glory without the cross, the shining without the suffering, but  crucifixion comes before coronation.

When the Answer is "Get Outta My Way"

It is even more difficult when God's method to answer our prayer is to use our lives without our mouths: we struggle with going into action without words. Wives who have prayed for their husband to be the spiritual leader struggle to close their mouths long enough for their husband to initiate any spiritual behavior. We are so full of our own understanding of Scripture, our children, disciple, or partner have no opportunity to get their oar into the waters of conversation. We are so enamored with our own understanding of the situation, we can't stop and let the other person speak--and miss out on God's answers that might come if we just listened.


Frankly, for all our praying, too often we are really too full of us. Sometimes God introduces pain into our world precisely to stop us in our tracks long enough that He will have room to work. Paul talked about how his experiences had a tendency to go to his head. So, God arranged for pain in his life to there would be more of God and less of Paul. 2CO 12:7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Sometimes our excuses, failures, inadequacies and "What If's" are the backdrop for God to get the greater glory…if we will allow Him to get us out of the way long enough to answer our prayers His way rather than our way. It is a challenge to know when God wants to use us in the answer to our prayer, and even more difficult when our involvement is just getting out of His way.

When Pointing Undermines our Praying

There are times when we actually avoid God's answers to our prayers. We pray and pray, but then, when He answers, are unwilling to be part of it. Take Moses, for instance. It was obvious that Moses had been interested in seeing God answer Israel's prayer for relief from Egyptian slavery. But, when God, meeting him at the corner of the Burning Bush and the backside of the desert, told him that He was going to do something about the slavery, Moses balked.


Here is what it was like,

The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt....And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 1So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." EX 3:7-10

Listen to Moses' various excuses and attempts to avoid being part of God's answer

But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" EX 3:11

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, `What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" EX 3:13

Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me EX 4:1

Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." EX 4:10

Moses sounds a bit like us. We too easily are "pointers" (pointing at what God's people need or what they could do), and many of our prayers are "pointing" to what we want God to do. Too often, however, like Moses, when God tosses it back into our lap and implies that we are a part of His answers to our own prayers, we get all full of "what if's" and negative self-image. "I can't" sometimes become our mantra in spite of all the emphasis on positive thinking today.

Too often we are the parent or partner who pleads with God for changes in children or mate, but when God calls us to change so He can engineer an answer, we become too busy with our work. We can easily see how our church ought to reach into the community and pull the gospel net by sharing Christ, but find our schedules so full of church activities that we have no time for staffing our corner of the net. Our lives are so full of good things we are too busy on the back side of our deserts to be God's instrument. We know what God should do but feel like too much of a failure in our previous efforts, to jump in again.

When you pray, expect God to answer, using you in some way! Instead of excuses and inadequate feelings, prepare to leave the desert and align yourself with His answers.

Prayer's Timetable!

God always answers prayer. However, we often experience answered prayer only after long delays, and sometimes then it even looks like He is only making things worse. But, God answers the prayer, often choosing His own methods, time-tables, and purposes.


At least, that is what I learn from how God answered prayer in Exodus. From the burning bush, God says, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them EX 3:7

God doesn't say how long He had been hearing them, but we know that Moses had been in the desert for 40 years, and the pain had been going on for years before that. Israel had been in Egypt for over 400 years, but the Bible doesn’t say how many of those 400 years were slavery.

Obviously, God takes His time in accomplishing what He wants. He always chooses the time when things are ripe for the answer. Even after telling Moses that He had come down to rescue them, it was months, at the very least before Israel marched out of bondage and into the desert. In the process, God seemed to make things worse to accomplish His answer His way...at least, this is what Moses expressed in Exodus 5 Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all." Exodus 5:22-23

Our experience is similar. The process of God releasing us from our bondages may hurt. Sometimes His answers to prayer are painful, involving desert experiences. We may feel like we are going to die in the process before we get free.

We often find ourselves praying fervently that God will release our partner from bondage to various things, but then complain because God's methods bring us pain along with their freedom. Parents pray fervently that their child will be set free from bondage, but then try to rescue the child from God's methods of their recovery because it hurts to see their pain--yet God is in our pain and often uses pain to set them free. We complain about our employer, and then object when God uses a layoff to set us free and send us on into His promised land. We often don't even recognize God's answer in the painful experiences of life until long after we have walked into the promised land of His answers.

God does answer prayer. It is just that His answers are seldom in the way we envision nor on our time-table. But, then, God's methods are more for His purposes than for our comfort. The big question we face is: are we willing to be His instruments in the answer, and to walk the road from Egypt as He directs?

As my friend, John Laskey, said, "I have learned that anything worthwhile in life takes way longer, costs way more, and is way harder than I thought possible." We experience life this way because we have God in the box of our expectations. He operates on His own schedule and His own methods for His own purposes, as He told Moses, I will gain glory for myself. Are we willing to let God out of our box and answer our prayers His way in the process finding that His answers are far better than our expectations?

Be Part of the Answer

As I've been reading the life of Moses in Exodus, I've been impressed with how God answers prayer--sometimes throwing us a curve in the answer to our longstanding prayers, telling us that we are the answer, like in this scene from Exodus 3


The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." (Exodus 3:7-10 NIV)

God heard their prayers, and promises to answer and deliver, but Moses was part of that answer. When we pray, we might expect that God may use us in His answer. Moses' part wasn't exactly to deliver Israel from Egypt. Moses had tried delivering Israel 40 years before--unsuccessfully. No, Moses' part of God's answer to prayer was to speak to the people and to Pharaoh, to hold up the staff at appropriately directed times. His part was to show up, in the face of rejection and personal danger, and take orders.

When we pray, be ready for God to say, "I'm going to answer. And you are part of that answer!" God doesn't seem to abide pointers, people who tell others what to do but don't pitch in and be a part. The Pharisees were like that, as Jesus pointed out in Matthew 24:4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (NIV)

So, keep on praying. God's answers may take 40 years. They may take 400 years. God's answers may not come quickly and easily. But, most importantly, God's answers may involve you. When you pray be ready to be a part--not all, but a part. He gave Moses specific directions on what was his part and what wasn't. Moses tried to weasel out of the assignment. God, however, saw through all his excuses and used him anyway--why? Because Moses went to Egypt! Moses was ready to be part of the answer, and to try again after previous failure. God most certainly answers prayer. Sometimes He wants to us as part of the answer, in spite of our previous failures, weaknesses, and excuses. In fact, our very weakness is a backdrop for Him to get greater glory—but, that is another story!

When you pray, be ready to move!

The Memory Tree

As we approach Epiphany (celebrating the wise men’s visit to Jesus described in Matthew 2), the traditional Christmas celebration for the eastern church, I wanted to reflect on the importance of a Christmas tree in our home.

This year we motored to Freddies instead of our favorite tree farm to get our tree. We found one, and it has been in our garage and then front room for a week. Yesterday I had to get it decorated because Jaxon, our grandson was coming to spend the afternoon.

So, I got out the boxes and decorations in my famous grinchly attitude. First the lights (only the colored strings worked enough this year, and since this is our year to not have family at Christmas, it didn't really matter?). Then the decorations.

That was when the memories came flooding back. We've accumulate quite a collection of decorations over 42 Christmases. Each one brought back a time, a place, or a person.

There were the decorations Carol hand painted for our second Christmas (only one of the toy soldiers made from TP rolls for our first Christmas together still languishes in a box). We couldn't afford much.

Then I broke out the original Grant nativity set--with figures about 1 inch high. How our kids loved that manger scene, even though it says more about our financial condition at that time (or my inherent stinginess) than our love for Jesus and His birth.

There were
• 3 Baby's first Christmas decorations, 73, 79 and 82.
• Countless treble and bass clefs, musical notes, bells, and pianos from Carols' piano students over the years.
• Plastic, stained glass appearing decorations from long ago friends
• Tiny wire and glass ornaments from friends
• Picture ornaments from each of our grandchildren
• Tiny flip-flops and palm trees from our Thanksgiving vacation in Maui
• Many angels
• Kewpie doll ornaments from my mother for our oldest
• Picture ornaments each of our children made in elementary school
• A ferry for our son's hobby
• A tiny Starbucks cup
• Knitted Santa Claus faces
• Bells made by national Christians in South America-

And, at the top of the tree, the angel our oldest made in Kindergarten, looking down over 42 years of memories.

It was a great experience that made me thankful for all those who have contributed to our Memory Tree over the year. What a special surprise that removed all the Grinch from my attitude and started Christmas for me.