From the archives of Oral Roberts – Third of five parts
When I was a child, we lived near my oldest uncle, Willis Roberts, who had a huge orchard noted for its great Elberta peaches. People came from miles away during the season to buy those great peaches. For years, Uncle Willis made thousands of dollars from that huge orchard.
But then, one year, the fruit wasn’t doing good. The next year it was worse. In just a few years’ time, the trees died, and there was no fruit. I used to visit Uncle Willis as a little boy, and he would pay us a dime an hour to help him pick the peaches from the trees. I loved that orchard and remember how the trees died.
Uncle Willis visited the county agricultural agent in our county seat and said, “Come out to my orchard and tell me what’s wrong.” The man investigated very carefully and said, “Mr. Roberts, you have made a fatal mistake. You have taken care of the fruit, but not the trees. The fruit did not produce the trees; the trees produce the fruit. If you had watered them, dug around them, and taken care of the trees, they would have been producing, beautiful, delicious Elberta peaches as much today as they ever did.”
“What shall I do?” my uncle asked.
And the county agent replied, “Plow it up. Plant new trees, and this time take care of your trees.”
When I was older and revisited the orchard, it was producing big Elberta peaches, and what a beautiful sight it was! Uncle Willis had lost the first orchard ― all because he didn’t know its source was the tree.
Do you realize that everything in life has a source? Every big river starts somewhere, many of them with a little spring up in the mountains. The water runs down the mountainside in rivulets, then into creeks and rivers before flowing into the Gulf or the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. But the source is up there in the mountains. There is a source for everything, but God is the Source of all.