Here’s my Video Devotional for the week of September 15th…

And here’s the transcript…

Hi, this is Eric Elder and welcome to The Ranch.  I heard from someone who was talking about planting trees.  He was asking, “Do you know what time is the best time to plant a tree?”  And his answer was: “Twenty years ago.”

Of course, he’s right.  If you want a whole yard full of trees or a whole city full of trees, then the best time to plant a tree would be twenty years ago.  But then he asked, “Do you know what the second best time is to plant a tree?”  And the answer to that question is: “Today.”

Time goes so quickly that what was once twenty years ago, all of a sudden is today.

I’m actually standing here at The Ranch and I’m in front of a tree that my wife and I planted nineteen years ago.  It was our Christmas tree in our house and we brought it in in a ball of dirt for a few days for Christmas, and we brought it back out here to the farm – my Dad was living out here at the time – and we brought it out here and we planted it.  And now, here it is, nineteen years later, and we have a beautiful tree.

Well, it was great that we planted that tree, but we’ve been planting more trees throughout the years, because every year I keep thinking of that phrase, and I keep thinking, “You know, I should try to plant a tree, or another tree, or another tree, because if I keep planting trees now, someday we’ll have a beautiful garden.”

And this past December, we planted another tree.  In case you don’t know, my wife passed away in November, and so we bought a Christmas tree for her.  That’s over here, I’ll show you this one if you’ll follow me over.

So this is one that was just planted in the past 10 months.  This is our brand new little pine tree, and we’ll just see, we may have another tree that, twenty years from now, will be another beautiful tree, and we might have a tree that looks like this tree.

My point in telling you all this today is that I want to encourage you to keep planting.  Keep trusting God that He can take things in your life, and over time, He can make them fruitful.  Again, as I had mentioned that my wife had passed away, I was surprised that we had been planting some apple trees and plum trees and cherry trees out in a small orchard here.  And every year I’ll buy a tree or two and we’ll plant it, and together we’d go out and with the family we’d plant a tree.

Well, none of those trees have been producing.  It takes several years for those to get going.  And oddly enough, this year, for the first time, we’ve got some apples on the trees.  Not only that, but we have had cherries on the trees, and we’ve had plums on the trees, and we’ve had some peaches on the trees.  And even some of the newest apple trees, that normally don’t take root and don’t produce until, like seven years.  But these are just maybe three years old and we’ve got some apples already growing.

And it’s a great reminder to me – I feel terrible about my wife dying – it’s affected us, my family, like nothing else I can tell you.  But when I came out here this summer, and I started seeing fruitfulness, and these trees, they’re bearing apples, and they’re beautiful apples.  They taste great, and it’s the first time they’ve ever produced.

And I just think of the work that Lana did in her lifetime, and she’s borne fruit.  Not just here in the orchard, but in our lives and with my children, and in the lives of other people.  I just want to encourage you, don’t get weary of doing good.  If you’ll keep planting, God will produce a harvest for you.

The Bible says, “Do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up.”

God will bring fruitfulness out of your life.  I want to encourage you in that and bless you today, in Jesus’ name, Amen.