May God bless you with discomfort,
At easy answers, half-truths,
And superficial relationships
So that you may live
Deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression,
And exploitation of people, 
So that you may work for 
Justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer in pain,
Rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand
To comfort them and 
To turn their pain to joy.

And my God bless you with even foolishness
To believe that you can
Make a difference in the world,
So that you can do
What others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness
To all our children and the poor.

Amen

“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

John the Baptist came preaching a word of repentance of the kingdom of God in the wilderness. People from all over Judea and the countryside came to hear and be baptized by John.

As John was baptizing the crowds, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to him to be baptized. This is when John the Baptist declared to all who were being baptized, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

John was declaring, “Don’t just go through the motions of religion. Don’t just react based on your emotions. If you are going to be baptized, if you are going to repent, if you want to live a new life, live in a way that demonstrate you have repented of your sins and turned to God.”

It’s not just about saying the right things. It’s not even about going through certain rituals. What counts is our genuine repentance and genuine change.

What would be the point of going through the motions of getting married and even saying all the right things but living as if you were single? Could such a marriage survive where your partner said all the right things but lived as though he were still single? Where his life, priorities, and habits hadn’t changed? What would it be like if he only said all the right things but was still dating and seeing other people?

John was telling the people, including the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were coming to be baptized, “If you are going to be baptized, prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and are now turning to God.”

What John the Baptist told the people in the wilderness still preaches today.

“Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20).

Wisdom has little to do with titles, degrees, or status.

Get around people who make you a better man, a better woman.

I do not remember where I saw this but I want to share with you some wisdom from a very wise man.

I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job: a flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric drill quit and his ancient one ton truck refused to start.

While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.

When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

“Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, those troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again.”

“Funny thing is,”he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ’em up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

We all need a Tree!