They say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but it turns out that apple trees can be very different from each other from one generation to the next. Certain fruits, like apples, are examples of what are called extreme heterozygotes. Basically, if you plant the seed of an apple and grow it into a tree with fruit of its own, the apples that grow from that tree will have very little in common with the apple from which the original seed came. One generation of apple trees and their apples end up being extremely different from the one that came before it. Planting a bunch of apple trees and having them all grow wildly different apples from each other is perhaps not a great business strategy. When we go to the grocery store, we expect to find Granny Smith or Golden Delicious or Honeycrisp apples that all more or less look and taste like all of the other Granny Smith and Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp apples we've ever bought. So, since apple trees do not produce apples that are true to seed, or, in other words, identical to the previous generation of apples, apple orchards rely on grafting in scions, or branches, from an existing tree into the base or rootstock of a new apple tree. The branches that are grafted in will grow on the new tree just as they would have on the old tree, producing apples that look and taste just like the ones on the original tree. I bring all of this up because in a lot of ways we are like apple trees. We are children of our Heavenly Father, but we start out very different from Him. Our thoughts are not His thoughts. Our ways are not His ways. Try as we might to follow in His footsteps and live our lives as He would, when left to our own devices, we can not produce the same kind of fruits that He can. If this were the whole story then it would be a heartbreaking tragedy. A lot of us do in fact feel broken or useless because we do our best and yet the fruit we produce is a stunted, misshapen, bitter shadow of the fruits that our Father produces. But it is not our destiny to produce only the fruits that come naturally to us. If we will allow it, our Heavenly Father will graft in scions from His own tree. He will bless and magnify and exalt us with branches from the true vine, and rather than produce only the fruits that come from the natural man, we will produce the fruits of the spirit - “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). It doesn't matter if we don't always produce the very best of fruits on our own. What matters is that we dig deep and grow into the best tree that we can be. As long as we have made a good rootstock of ourselves, the Lord will be able to graft in His own gifts and talents. One good apple tree can only grow so many good apples, but a whole orchard of apple trees, each of which on their own might not have grown very good apples, can nevertheless grow bushels and bushels of good apples by taking cuttings from that one good apple tree and grafting them into all of the others. The Lord can't carry out His great work all on His own, just like one apple tree can't grow a whole orchard’s worth of apples by itself. Every good fruit that we produce is all thanks to the grace and goodness of our Heavenly Father, but there would be fewer good fruits in this world if we weren't good enough roots into which branches from the True Vine could be grafted in.
