Fiona Veitch Smith

I once had a chilli plant growing in my kitchen. Year after year it produced the hottest little chillis you could imagine. And it was beautiful too. I loved my chilli plant and actually shed a tear when it died after my housesitter forgot to water it when I was away on a month-long holiday. Fortunately I had dried some of the chillis so I used them to replant. I prepared the soil with the best compost I could find, planted the seeds, watered them and put them on a sunny window sill.

About a month later the chillis began to grow. But one plant outdid its siblings: the shoots were greener, the leaves bigger and the first flower was enormous. It was only when the fruit began to form and became round and bulbous that I realised this wasn’t a chilli but a cantelope pepper. I now have a scrawny chilli plant in the same pot as this high achiever but because their root balls are so entwined I can’t separate them.

In Matthew 7:15 – 23 Jesus warns people about the fruit of false prophets. They appeared to be one thing but turned out to be something else. However, this principle can be applied more broadly to all people and all Christians. We will be judged not by our potential or what we claim to be, but what, in the end, we finally produce.  By their fruit you will know them.

This meditation is taken from a series in Faith Station. Published by King’s Cross Training.