I love the trees and plants that surround my home, from the cool fresh air they emit to the shade they provide on summer days. Of course the fruit bearing plants we grow for the delicious harvest they yield, but the time of year that the greatest beauty is seen all around is in the spring when after the long cold and often dreary winter ends the blossoms bloom into glorious color and sweet aroma. Most of our trees blossom all at once within about a three week period. The array of color and glory of life to behold is only realized in God’s creative hand, and seen for a few short weeks. My favorites are the peach blossoms, for which I wait all year, and the waiting and anticipation makes their glorious coming all the more worthwhile.

It is said that “good things come to those who wait.” I have to agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. In the case of the blossoming peach trees, I think they are beautiful all year-round. From the tender green leaves of middle-spring, to the plump fruit for summer eating, the autumn leaves turning and falling, and the skeletal limbs of winter’s cold, I enjoy the watching, the waiting, the juicy flesh of fruit’s harvest, until my favorite time comes again, and they are arrayed more beautifully than mortal hand can create. It would be such a loss out of impatience to cut down those trees and burn them in the furnace simply because I can not endure the waiting for when their magnificence is again most gloriously displayed.

This is so in all things. Throughout my life I have observed clearly that the most precious things, and people who I love dearest, have required waiting, long-suffering and patience endured. Yes, “patience is a virtue,” through which the greatest of blessings come, simply because we are willing to wait, willing to endure. We do not always understand why we have to wait, sometimes we do not even know what we are waiting for. But this I know, the waiting brings character worthy of reward and makes us better people to receive and to share all that God has for us.

There are tragic stories of those who refuse to wait, give up everything all because of a short term discomfort, or an unwillingness to be patient in tribulation or unknowing. It is like Esau, a great and mighty hunter, who could provide all the food he could ever need, but when he was hungry, and unwilling to take the time to prepare his own dinner, he sold his birthright to his younger twin brother for a simple meal. We read, “And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage,…. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright” (Genesis 25:29-34).

Esau disrespected the way of his people so much so that he was willing to throw away his birthright just to satisfy hunger in the moment. Is that not what we all do when we set aside the laws and commandments of God for our own personal pleasure or the desire of the moment, therefore putting our own birthright as sons and daughters of God at risk, just because we were not willing to wait or to be patient.

God blesses us that all of our needs will be fulfilled, not always in the day or the hour when we would desire, but ever providing in our patience and endurance, our willingness to wait on the Lord. The blossoms of the trees bloom in their season and bring forth sweet fruit from the earth in their day. A peach will only be ripe when it is ripe, and picking it too soon will not make it so. May we all be willing to wait and have good things, even the best of things, the blessings of our loving Heavenly Father, come to us as we learn to be humble and patient in Him. Let us be found waiting with lamps lit when He beckons us to come, follow Him, through adversity and into life eternal. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.