Get In Loser, We’re Planting Trees

I have a confession that will surprise absolutely nobody who actually knows me.

I am not really a people person.

I like people. Well. Some people. Individually. In reasonable doses. Preferably after coffee and with a clearly communicated end time.

Give me a kitten, a good book, some good coffee and somewhere quiet, and I am GOOD. Great, actually. Thriving. Cady Heron in Africa before Regina George, cafeteria politics and the Burn Book complicated her entire existence.

Unfortunately, God keeps calling me toward people.

Rude.

Which lately, I am beginning to understand why.

God has spent this season pruning, plucking, exposing, correcting and rearranging so much in me that there were mornings I opened my Bible like, “Okay Jesus, before we begin, I would just like to remind You that I am sensitive.”

He remained unmoved.

“Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2 ESV

I understood the pruning part.

Very clearly.

Aggressively, even.

What I did not understand was the “more fruit” part.

Because I am realizing that all this work God has been doing in me was never supposed to end with me.

Apparently, I am not the final destination.

Again.

Rude.

There is something God has placed inside of me that somebody else needs. There is experience I survived, wisdom I paid entirely too much tuition for, lessons I learned the hard way, gifts I did not manufacture and testimony I absolutely would not have chosen had God handed me a clipboard and said, “Please select your preferred character development package.”

I would have selected “minimal adversity with excellent benefits.”

That was apparently unavailable.

So now I have all this “stuff”.

And at some point, hiding what God put in me because I would rather drink coffee and mind my business stops being humility.

It becomes poor stewardship.

Which brings me to the sentence that offended me personally:

“Intentional mediocrity is a sin.”

Okay.

That is NOT a Bible verse.

Please do not go looking for Mediocre 3:16.

It does not exist.

Yet the principle behind it made me uncomfortable because Scripture is very clear about stewardship.

In Matthew 25:14–30, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. One servant buried what had been entrusted to him.

He did not lose it.

He did not destroy it.

He did not misuse it.

He just did nothing with it.

Oh.

Because poor stewardship is not only misusing what God gave me.

Sometimes poor stewardship is refusing to use it at all.

There is a saying that the graveyard is the richest place in the world because buried there are books never written, businesses never started, inventions never created, ministries never birthed, songs never sung and ideas that never made it outside somebody’s head.

Now, I have not personally audited the graveyard’s assets.

However.

The point stands.

Potential buried is still potential wasted.

And that brings me to the marketplace.

Which sounds fancy.

“The marketplace.”

Like I need to put on pants that do not stretch, wear an actual bra, leave my Crocs at home and go somewhere there are other human beings.

The marketplace is basically wherever life is life-ing.

It is where people work, gather, exchange ideas, conduct business, build relationships, solve problems, make decisions and occasionally schedule meetings that absolutely could have been emails.

It is the office.

The coffee shop.

The school.

The grocery store.

The neighborhood.

The internet.

The marketplace is basically anywhere I cannot hide in my house, binged Netflix and pretend I have fulfilled the Great Commission.

And when I look at Jesus, something becomes hilariously obvious.

Jesus was OUTSIDE.

Jesus was with the people.

Constantly.

Weddings. Houses. Boats. Roads. Wells. Hillsides. Dinner tables. Crowds.

Sick people.

Hurting people.

Confused people.

Religious people.

Messy people.

People interrupting Him.

People asking questions.

People asking questions He had basically already answered.

Jesus was outside outside.

Meanwhile, I need approximately three to five business days to recover from a group function.

Yet Jesus did not spend His ministry sitting inside the synagogue waiting for everybody to come find Him.

He went where they were.

Paul did too.

Acts 17:17 says he “reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.” ESV

Every day.

Not when his social battery permitted.

Not after checking who RSVP’d.

Not “Lord, I’ll go if parking is convenient.”

Every day.

Apparently I cannot keep asking God to use me while also requesting that He please do so remotely.

At some point, I have to actually go where the people are.

Possibly in real pants.

Without Crocs.

With a real bra.

Because I cannot impact a world I refuse to enter.

And suddenly, all the pruning God has been doing in me makes more sense.

My first assignment in the marketplace is not what I say.

It is who I am.

My example goes into the room before my sermon ever does.

Which immediately made me think about Mean Girls.

“She saw Cady Heron wearing army pants and flip flops, so I bought army pants and flip flops.”

That line is hilarious because it perfectly demonstrates how influence works.

People reproduce what they consistently see.

So before I ever preach, teach, write an article, quote Scripture or announce that I love Jesus, my life has already been talking.

How I work talks.

How I respond when I am irritated talks.

How I handle correction talks.

How I treat somebody who cannot do anything for me talks.

How I apologize talks.

How I behave when nobody knows I am “the Christian” talks.

My example is already influencing somebody.

The question is what exactly am I influencing them toward?

Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV

Sir.

That is BOLD.

Paul essentially said, “Watch me.”

Meanwhile, some days I am like, “Actually, everybody look away. There is nothing to see here.”

Yet that is what God has been working on.

My example has to become strong enough to carry my influence.

Because I cannot tell people to follow Christ while my character is yelling, “Quit trying to make fetch happen.”

I cannot manufacture Kingdom influence with Christian catchphrases, good vibes and a cute scripture in my bio.

My life has to match what I say I believe.

God is not sending me into the marketplace just to be likable.

He is sending me to carry His character.

That requires standards.

Real ones.

Standards that remain standards when they are inconvenient.

Standards that survive irritation.

Standards that survive rejection.

Standards that survive nobody clapping.

Because if I only maintain a standard when it is comfortable, that is not really a standard.

That is a preference.

And suddenly, I understand the pruning differently.

God has not simply been making me better for me.

He has been preparing me to become useful to somebody else.

I have spent so much of my life focused on producing fruit.

Can I heal?

Can I grow?

Can I become wiser?

Can I become disciplined?

Can I become more like Christ?

Those are good questions.

Necessary questions.

But eventually God asks another one:

What are you planting?

Because there is only one of me.

A tree can produce fruit for a season, but planting creates something that can keep producing after I leave.

Second Timothy 2:2 says, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” ESV

That is multiplication.

God gives something to Paul.

Paul pours it into Timothy.

Timothy pours it into others.

They pour it into somebody else.

Fruit became seed.

Seed became trees.

Trees produced more fruit.

And suddenly, this whole season comes together.

The pruning was not pointless.

The plucking was not punishment.

The correction was not God waking up every morning and choosing violence against my personality.

He was preparing me.

I thought God was working this hard on me because He wanted me to produce better fruit.

He does.

But I think He is also telling me it is time to stop measuring my life only by what I personally produce.

It is time to plant something.

To teach somebody.

Encourage somebody.

Pour into somebody.

Model something worth repeating.

Leave something growing behind me.

Which unfortunately means I may have to leave my metaphorical African savanna.

I have to go where the people are.

I have to enter the marketplace.

I have to let my life become the first sermon.

I may even have to put on pants with a button.

Let us not get carried away about the Crocs.

God is still working on me.

Yet for the first time, I think I see how all of it connects.

The fire.

The pruning.

The plucking.

The correction.

The character work.

God was never pruning me just so I could become a prettier tree.

He was pruning me because eventually, He expected me to plant a forest.