Man-O-War Cay lies like a jewel in an azure sea. One of the Family or Out Islands of the Bahamas, it is little more than two-and-a-half miles long. It is hook shaped, with a well-guarded harbor at its midpoint, coveted by yacht owners. For decades the inhabitants were known by their simple way of life: sail-making, boat-building, and fishing. But in the last fifty or sixty years, wealthy Americans have found their way there, building homes on the extremities of the island, away from the settlement clustered about the harbor.
As one islander told me, “When the Americans came to the Bahamas, they brought with them their money, their gold watches and big boats, and they built their fancy homes. They had a message. We didn’t have much money then, or any of the fine things they had. But we had the Lord; we had the gospel. We had a message and they had a message. But they were the better missionaries. We didn’t convert them; they converted us.” Those words cut to my heart. I fear I have often been more a convert to the world’s values than a missionary with a far better message for money-rich, soul-bankrupt sinners.
I was walking the length of the island one sun-drenched afternoon and came upon a brother who was a gardener for some of the American home owners. I always enjoyed the old fellow’s company. He had a native wisdom you can’t find in textbooks. He was happy to take me on a little tour of the estate’s garden, especially the citrus trees he had carefully cultivated so the visitors would have fresh fruit for their table when they arrived. He pointed to one. “That,” he said, “is a sour orange tree.”
Then, plucking a ripe fruit from its laden branches, he deftly peeled it with his gnarled fingers and handed it to me. I did not relish eating a sour orange.
What was my delight to find it one of the sweetest, juiciest, most succulent oranges I had ever tasted!
The old fellow laughed, then explained. The soil on the island is shallow and beneath it is a bed of coral. When it rains, the water tends to lie just under the surface until it can percolate through the rock. This makes it difficult on tree roots which tend to rot in the underground water. But it has been discovered that the roots of the sour orange are hardy enough to survive in those conditions. No one, however, wants sour oranges.
Once a sour orange tree takes good root, a sweet orange branch is grafted in. The sour orange continues to grow, constantly attempting to dominate the life of the tree. But the gardener patiently prunes back the old life until a bountiful tree stands in the garden, providing shade, fragrance, and a fruitful harvest for its owner.
Sour root. Sweet fruit. So is it a sour orange tree or a sweet orange tree? Let our Lord answer the question. “Every good tree produces good fruits, but the worthless tree produces bad fruits. A good tree cannot produce bad fruits, nor a worthless tree produce good fruits…By their fruits then surely ye shall know them” (Mt. 7:17-20, Darby). The tree is known not by its root but by its fruit. Call it a sweet orange tree.
We also grow in a difficult environment. And what is more, we grow from a sour stock, of ourselves incapable of growing anything but sour fruit. But because we have received “with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas. 1:21), a new kind of fruit is possible in the lives of those who still give evidence of the old sour life sprouting up here and there. If we yield such sour evidence of the flesh to the knife (the written Word) wielded in the hands of the gracious Gardener, we will soon bear by His life (the Living Word) “the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22). Such a life will be sweet indeed.
Written by J. B. Nicholson Jr