The heat you feel and the toil before you are known to your Father in heaven, and He does not waste the fierce sun nor the labor of your hands. That scalping of the trees has left you without shade and without visible fruit, yet it may be that the Lord is driving you to find your shade beneath His wings and to learn that the fruit of His Spirit in you is not dependent upon any outward bough. The unbelief of man, so long as it remains, renders blessing impossible, but you have cried to Jesus, therefore lift up your heart and expect grace.
Plunge yourself into the Godhead's deepest sea and be lost in His immensity! The very leaves of Christ’s tree are for healing, and the least things that come from Him have restoring virtue. Where shade has been stripped away, His overshadowing presence can cool the fever of the spirit. Where fruit seems gone, remember that the Lord creates the fruit of the lips, prayer, praise, and testimony, which no axe can touch and no thief can steal. You have not because you ask not, but you have asked. Now, in the very heat, sit and keep on blessing God from the first thought of the morning to the last.
This trial, rightly borne, will ripen you. Fruit is ripened by the sun; all heat and no moisture would leave no fruit at all, so He sends the dew of His Spirit alongside the scorching day. Tenderness is the mark of maturity, the hard green berry is useless, but the soft, ripe fruit yields to the lightest pressure. Let this scalping make your heart soft toward the very one who harmed the trees; that would be rare fruit indeed, and a marvel of His grace. The Lord fills a man that he may overflow with blessing for those around him, and perhaps you are set in this discomfort to be a blessing to some you could not otherwise reach.
Do not despise the seeming loss of fruit from those trees. The Lord bids us look for a blessing wherever we may be and whatever we do. Is it not that you may be a blessing in the midst of much to get done, a sweet savor of Christ as you labor? The double blessing of grace and peace comes from God our Father, and no spiritual blessing comes to any man by chance. He has blessed you just where you needed blessing, and your cry for help has already ascended to His heart. Go forward, then, into this special weekend kept safe in His care, not fretting over the bare branches, but bearing the fruit of lips that whisper, Peace, peace, to your own soul and to all around you. Surely, blessing He will bless you, and you shall be a blessing.