THERE is a lovely old apricot tree in our neighbor's yard which reaches out over our fence and blossoms profusely each spring. It bears some fruit, but most of its fruit drops before it ripens. I asked a fruit grower one day why this was so, and he said: "Because it doesn't get enough sun. Apricots need sun."
This answer turned my thought to these verses in Malachi (3:10, 11): "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field."
If we translate this metaphor of the fruit and the vine into our individual human experience, what is it that we must do in order to receive such a harvest of blessing, of fully ripened fruit? The first part of verse 10 reads, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse." If we fulfill this obligation merely from a material point of view, paying only material tithes and neglecting our spiritual gifts of gratitude and love, we cast a shade on our own experience and lose the full blessing of fruitage. Jesus clarified this point when he said (Matt. 23: 23), "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
