Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ~James 1:2-4

I once heard a story about a Florida man who owned an orange grove. This man would only give his trees what they needed to survive; at times he starved their roots for water. As the trees grew, their roots had to dig deeper in search of water, therefore it took longer for them to produce a crop. The other farmers laughed as they pulled in their harvest each year, but the man knew what he was doing. You see, Florida has these occasional natural disasters called hurricanes. Well, a particularly strong hurricane came through this man’s grove and the winds tore at the trees, stripping them of their leaves. The same was true for the groves in the surrounding area…with one major difference. Since the man’s trees had deep roots, they remained standing strong, maybe a broken branch or two, but as a whole, they were intact. As for the other groves, their trees had shallow roots; they had no reason to dig any deeper. Those trees were easily ripped from the ground and shattered into pieces, destroying the tree. The end result, the man who took the time to allow his trees to grow deeper roots, despite having to wait longer for his trees to mature, was able to pull in bountiful harvests for years while the others had to pick up the pieces and start fresh. Read the rest of this entry →