August 23, 2026
Summer Fruit
Ecclesiastes 3:1 – “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”
The peach tree in the backyard stayed bare of anything worth eating for most of the year, just green leaves and the occasional bird passing through. Then summer arrived, and within a few weeks the branches were heavy with fruit that had not existed a month earlier, ripe enough to pick and eat right off the tree, sweet in a way that no amount of watering in April could have rushed into existence. Pick that same tree in February and there is nothing there worth the effort. Not because the tree failed, but because February was never the season for peaches. Some fruit simply will not ripen before its time, no matter how much a person wants it sooner.
Farmers understand this instinctively. Nobody plants tomatoes expecting a harvest the following week, and nobody stands in a winter orchard wondering why the branches look empty. The absence of fruit in the wrong season is not evidence that the tree is broken. It is evidence that the season has not arrived yet.
Solomon wrote that there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven, and that principle applies to more than planting and harvest. It applies to promotions that have not come yet, prayers that seem to sit unanswered, relationships still being formed, callings still being shaped in the dark before anyone can see them. The fruit a person is waiting for may not be missing at all. It may simply not be ripe yet, growing quietly toward a season that has not fully arrived.
The peach tree looked empty in February and full in July, and it was the same tree the entire time. What looks barren in your life right now may just be waiting on its season.
Today’s Prayer: Lord, help me trust Your timing when the fruit I’m hoping for has not yet appeared. Teach me to wait, knowing You are still working even in the barren season. Amen.
Reflection Question: What are you currently waiting for that may not be missing, but simply not yet in season?