Roots and Fruits

If I were to ask you, who are you, what would be your answer? Would you tell me you are a lawyer, professional athlete, banker or executive? Those would be great sounding answers but they are what you do, not who you are. Too often in today’s times we confuse who we are with what we do. No one can blame us. The society we live in is driven by our status. Most people want to be recognized by the power or influence we have. The answer to the question of who we are is what we are made of inside. Kind of like a tree, we have a root system. In a tree, the root feeds the trunk. In us, our root system feeds what we do.
We are told in Jeremiah 17:7-8 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” We often confuse the trunk feeding the roots, but the roots feed the trunk. We try and start with the outcome only to find we don’t have the necessary foundation or root system to sustain what we desire. Matthew 12:33 says 33 “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by its fruit.” What fruit do you want to be recognized by?