— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
As this year draws to a close, we find ourselves at a threshold—looking back on months now passing, and forward into a year not yet known. At such moments, Jesus’ parable of the fig tree speaks with particular tenderness.
The owner comes seeking fruit and finds none. Perhaps this echoes how we look back over the year just ending. We may ask ourselves: What has this year produced? Were there hopes left unfulfilled, prayers unanswered, efforts that did not bear the fruit we imagined?
Jesus does not deny these questions. The fig tree is, indeed, barren. But the parable does not end there.
The expected response is clear. Since it is not bearing the fruit that it is expected to produce let us get rid of it. Let us cut it down. What we fail to see here is the inestimable capacity of the human to transform for good.
However the gardener steps forward and asks for time.
“Let it alone for one more year,” he says. “I will dig around it and put manure on it.”
At the end of the year, this is profoundly good news. God meets our disappointments not with condemnation, but with patience and care. God does not measure us only by outcomes, but by the possibility of growth still unfolding.
As we wait for the new year, this parable invites us to trust in the God who believes in becoming. A God who is willing to work the soil of our lives again—turning what looks like waste into nourishment, what feels like failure into fertile ground.
The coming year is not a demand to “do better,” but an invitation to receive care, to allow God to tend us more deeply, more intentionally. Growth will come—but it will come in God’s time and in God’s way.
So as this year ends, we place into God’s hands both what has borne fruit and what has not. And as we look toward the new year, we wait—not with anxiety, but with hope—trusting the patience of the divine gardener.
May the year ahead be a season of renewed soil, quiet growth, and unexpected fruit.
Amen
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 