Good, Painful Fruit

This morning, laying in my hammock, looking into the back yard: trees, flowers, doggies, kitties, leaves on the ground and fruit high in the trees.  Praying for a fruitful year.  Praying for fruit.  Good fruit.  Useful fruit. Sweet tasting fruit!

In my back yard fruit bearing brings with it a lot of work, labor and toil.  Grass cutting, leave raking, ground watering, fruit picking, fruit giving, fruit using, fruit freezing, yard cleaning, tree pruning, peeling, juicing, bagging.  Love it!  Hate it!

What will producing spiritual fruit require of me?  What kind of hard work and toil?  Weeding, cleaning, pruning of the heart and mind and habits.  To what point will my self-discipline be stretched and tested and put to use?  Soil needs watering, fertilizing.  Branches need shaping, cutting. 

I ask for fruit.  God asks for fruit.  But good fruit means hard work.  Am I ready?  Am I WILLING?  Do I want it bad enough to labor and toil?  To cut and rake and weed?  To prune and shape?  To allow myself to be picked and cut and cleaned and squeezed and juiced and bagged and freezed and thawed and used and GIVEN AWAY????

Part of me does and part of me doesn't.  But the part that doesn't is tired and weary from fighting and resisting and avoiding.  Questioning.  Doubting.  The part that doesn't wants to give in to the part that does. 

Give in?  Give up?  Let go? Let God?  Will I?  Won't I?

Give in!  Give up!  Let Go!  Let God!

Oh, please help me, God!