Word for the Church: Apple Harvest

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about Covid (what else is anyone talking about these days, really?). My friend admitted some of the fear she was experiencing as the Delta variant surges and as she tries to navigate what this means for her family and her younger children who are not yet vaccinated, etc.

The word "afraid" came out several times in that conversation, and it got me to thinking about planes, naturally. :) 

Some of you know that one of my greatest fears... is flying. Or rather falling while flying. I think I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again, because it serves my point. When I was pregnant with my oldest, I nervously boarded a flight from Dublin, Ireland to Venice, Italy. I'd flown before, I already knew I was a little afraid of it, but it had been several months since my last flight, and we'd had a traumatic flight incident on our original flight to the U.K. the previous September. 

September 2006: There had been a terrorist attack in the London Underground, and all flights had been shut down the day we were supposed to fly into Heathrow. It took two days, lots and lots and lots of communication with our "welcoming party" in London, a ton of time spent on the phone with British Airways, an upgrade to business class (that was super nice), another night spent in the airport when another "device" was found aboard our plane, another threat of a flight closure, the possibility of getting sent home again, before finally boarding and taking off. 

In all that space between the time we were originally supposed to take off to the actual take off, I had a lot of time to stew, to imagine any worst-case scenarios, and so by the time we were in the air... I was extremely jumpy. No matter the first-class arrangements or the fact that I could lie down horizontally to sleep... sleep fled far from me.

Fast-forward seven months, and I'm four months pregnant. Two days before our flight from Dublin to Venice, I felt my baby kick for the first time. It was beautiful. Those little flutterings -- I loved them, and of all the experiences of pregnancy, that is the one thing I truly miss. I loved feeling the baby move inside of me.

April 2007: All those experiences from flight number one -- from Dulles to Heathrow -- had grown from little baby fears in my head to great big giant fears. I'd had months to nurture those fears, and now I had another life who depended on mine growing inside of me, which served to exponentially increase the pressure.

I sat in the airplane seat between my husband and my mother (my parents had flown over to join us on our trip), and we barreled down the runway in our RyanAir metallic tube with wings. My heart was beating fast, and my respiration was starting to speed up at the same rate as the plane. I felt the wheels leave the ground, and we were free of the earth. The pressure pushed me back against the seat, my breaths went from fast to hyperventilation about the same time as we leveled with the tops of the buildings. We kept climbing, and I got tunnel-vision. The light closed in to pinpricks in front of me, and I knew I was going to faint.

My mom and my husband gripped a hand on either side, and my mom was watching me closely. "You've got to calm down," she reminded me. "It's not good for the baby, or for you, either."

Oh. Right. Calm down. That's what I needed to do. Just... be calm. ;) The thing is, irrational fear doesn't listen to common sense. It just takes over until your whole body dumps cortisol and adrenaline into your brain by the bucketful. Your fight-or-flight system takes over, and as all these things were happening inside of me, I was ready to jump off that plane. The problem was... I couldn't get out of the flying metal tube in the sky.

I had zero control. Z-E-R-O.

I started to pray. You know, I'd love to tell a story like: "An immediate rush of confidence and trust burst through me as soon as I asked for help." They didn't. 

But slowly, gradually, I did feel peaceful again. I was still terrified, but I knew that Jesus Himself was walking with me in the fear and that He would lead me out the other side. I had confidence in that. Psalm 73:26 was spazzing in neon lights inside my head: "My flesh and my heart may fail (boy, were they ever!), but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!"

Paul writes to Timothy: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (fear, say some translations), but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline (or a sound mind)" (2 Timothy 1:7).

In Romans 8:1-17, Paul introduces the two mind-sets we have before us: the mind-set controlled by the sinful nature, and the mindset controlled by the Spirit. "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace" (Romans 8:6).

Further down, Paul says: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship (or 'adoption,' as another translation says). And by Him we cry, 'Abba, Father!'" (Romans 8:15).

On the plane, I wrestled with the fear monster. It was a big monster; it was scary and had sharp, pointy teeth that bit deeply into my heart, and like a bulldog, it wouldn't let go. Guilt accompanied that fear monster, riding on him like a saddle, because I was supposed  to trust. As a Christian, I knew my life was in the capable hands of my Father, and that I needed to release my own need for control... but letting go was a hard ask.

Added to that -- after we landed again and things calmed down... those flutterings I'd felt in my stomach, the tiny, tiny kicks... were missing. There was only resounding stillness. And for the first four days that we walked through Italy, I was fairly sure I'd killed my own child through my own lack of trust. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Guilt and pain. I could only function by telling myself: Wait until your next healthcare appointment. Just wait. 

GUILT! And PAIN!

On that airplane, it took a long time to remember rationality again, to remember that I and my unborn baby and my husband and my family and every person on that plane were ultimately in the hands of my Father. Not one of us would leave earth even one second earlier than what He intended.

It was a wrangling of trust. But trust came, nevertheless. Because I was not given the spirit of fear, but of power (I can conquer this through the strength of my Lord Jesus), and love (I love my Savior with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, and some day -- maybe even today -- I will be able to see Him face to face, and what a day that will be!), and of a sound mind (I am in a plane, with a highly trained pilot, and people do this every day, sometimes all day. So I can remember that expert mechanics built this plane, expert technicians run it, and if the Lord wills it, I will land safely).

I did land safely. 

This is the process that I go through every single time I'm required to fly. Which perhaps is a part of the reason we haven't flown very often; it's just a lot to process. But... I know that I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13), and I am not given a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), nor am I a slave to it (Romans 8:15).

Back to the Covid conversation. I've told this story, because there is a terrible fear out there... of getting sick and of spreading sickness. Which is understandable. Because people are getting sick and dying as a result of this horrible disease. People do board planes and occasionally drop out of the sky. People do get into cars, pull onto the highway, and get mowed over by a truck. 

We put safety measures into place, right? We develop vaccines. Maybe we purchase tickets from... Delta, for example, rather than RyanAir. (Sorry, RyanAir). We wear seatbelts, because they've been proven to save lives. 

But we don't necessarily stay at home because if we get in the car, we'll die. Or if we get in the plane, we'll fall out of the sky. Or if we leave our house, we'll breathe the wrong air molecule and end up with Covid. 

I'm not diatribing for a particular approach to Covid, necessarily. I think people will treat it differently, depending on their experiences. What I am saying is that whatever happens, don't let yourself be so consumed by fear... that you forget to look at the One Who is truly in control. Don't forget to release your tight grip on the plane controls to the true Pilot. 

The Lord has been teaching me a lot about releasing control over the last several years, and in particular... this past year. On July 22, the Lord showed me a vision of an apple orchard. Apples literally covered the ground, so thickly, there wasn't even space to step between them. The trees where the apples had grown were stripped bare of fruit, only leaves remained. The apples were at all stages of development: large, small, ripe, partially ripened.

Every apple was on the ground because of a hurricane that had just passed through, and not one fruit could cling to its branch. As I was surveying the scene, the workers arrived to bring the apples into the storehouse. All apples were gathered, no matter the stage of their development.

I prayed about the vision for a while, wondering what message the Lord was giving me. I think there were a couple of layers to it.

First: The apples are the church, where many members are at several stages of growth in the Lord. Some are new believers, some have been walking this path for many years. All, no matter what stage, are caught up in a great shaking, and all -- when the Lord comes -- will be taken up, ripe or unripe, new believer or seasoned believer. The Scriptures clearly illustrate growth and maturation in the Christian journey (see 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12). 

Second: In the shaking, not one apple held on to its branch. In the shaking, every apple became a part of the farmer's produce. Even though the apple was a part of the tree, it was not created to stay on that tree. It was grown to eventually produce a harvest for the farmer, and so the shaking, the buffeting, brought that about.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 reminds us that what we produce will be tested by fire, and some of it will be burned up (wood, hay, stubble), and some will survive the fire and be strengthened in the refining (gold, silver, costly stones). 

But the refining will happen. The shaking will shake us. We cannot control the shaking ourselves, but we know the One Who does control it. How are we going to respond?

In fear? Or in power, love, and soundness of mind?

Did God send Covid as judgment, shaking, buffeting? Or is it from the enemy, to try to weaken us, take us away from the Farmer? 

I don't know. Maybe one, maybe the other, maybe both. Bad things happen, horrible things, tragic things... but the Lord can and does still work through those things in powerful ways, if we keep our eyes on Him to see what He's doing.

Just remember, the Farmer is a good Farmer. The Gardener is a good Gardener. The Father is a good, good Father. Can we release our need for control to Him? Can we release the apple branches and let ourselves be taken into the storehouse to fulfill the purpose He has for us?