Cultivating Fruit of the Spirit with The Restored Orchard

A Still Small Voice: Fallow Season Reflection

After the Fire, a Whisper We're back. And before we do anything else, we want to honor that because sliding back into content like the fallow season didn't happen would be missing the whole point. It did happen. And it mattered. In this episode, we're opening June by going to 1 Kings 18-19 and walking through a powerful story. Elijah has just stood alone against 450 prophets of Baal, called fire down from heaven, and watched an entire nation fall on their faces before God. It is a mountaintop moment by every measure. And then one threatening message sends him into the wilderness asking God to take his life. That crash (the low that doesn't make sense given what you just came through) is exactly what happens when everything is poured out with nothing replenished. We'll explore what God does in response: not correction, not rebuke, not a new assignment. Rest. Food. Sleep. And then a journey to the mountain of God, where we see the wind, earthquake, and fire and God is not in any of them. Only in the low whisper that follows. You'll hear why the fallow season matters, what a one-degree drift looks like over time, and three honest questions to carry into this season about where you actually are right now. Because sometimes the most significant thing God does comes in the quietest seasons. Scripture: 1 Kings 18-19, Psalm 46:10, Leviticus 25 Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube @TheRestoredOrchard and visit www.therestoredorchard.org [http://www.therestoredorchard.org] for more resources. Host: Sabrian Enoch

The Fallow Season

In this special episode, we're pulling up a chair to talk honestly about what's next. Fallow ground is land that's been plowed and prepared but is intentionally left unplanted for a season. Deliberately allowed to lie quiet so the soil can be replenished and the next season of planting has ground that's ready to receive it. God instituted this in Leviticus 25. Every seventh year, the land rested. No sowing, no pruning, no harvesting. Just stillness. And the provision wasn't the people's problem to solve. We'll explore Genesis 8:22's reminder that there's seedtime and harvest... not seedtime and immediately harvest. There's a between, a waiting, a season of quiet where the work happens underground. This is the last new episode until June 1st. May is a fallow season for The Restored Orchard, stepping back to sit at God's feet and receive fresh vision for what comes next. Restoration requires this. The fallow. The quiet. The letting the ground be what it needs to be before the next season of fruit. Scripture: Genesis 8:22, Leviticus 25:1-5, Isaiah 28:24-26, Ecclesiastes 3:1 EPISODES: The Beauty of Seasons: Discovering Gold in Every Moment [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HTBQMPZn1JT0vnwahygDy?si=IRnuidqjTe-m47tjASz8Cg] A Mother's Reflection [https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ZWxdxJ6v1eHnWUlf9t2lI?si=rwP1ywc7SXixWQH47v6pEQ] Lessons from A Bird in the Rain [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HTzLwFrUUUGOvB9nachUV?si=kqyqLhq6R5iJ47GL7mMwUg] Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube @TheRestoredOrchard and visit www.therestoredorchard.org [http://www.therestoredorchard.org] for more resources.

M is for Mothers and Manna

"Nobody cares about this. I think this is more for you than for us." Those words from a child cracked something open... because a lot of what we do as mothers, well-meaning and genuinely loving, is actually more for us than for them. And most of the time we don't even realize it. In this episode, we're exploring how we parent from ourselves: our history, memories, wounds, and wishes. Some of us give our children everything we didn't have, pouring out what we were starving for. Some parent the way we were parented because it's what we know. But love filtered through our own story isn't the same as love shaped by who they actually are. Proverbs 22:6 says "train up a child in the way he should go" meaning his way, the direction native to who God made them to be. We'll sit with Psalm 139:13-16's reminder that God knit them together, saw them before anyone else did, and knows their wiring, gifting, and calling. We'll discover that parenting them the way they should go requires fresh manna daily, new mercies every morning from the One who knows them fully. You'll learn to pray specifically about each child, ask whose needs you're really meeting, and gather what you need for today before the day starts. Motherhood is kingdom work and God hasn't left you to do it alone. Happy Mother's Day! Scripture: Proverbs 22:6, Psalm 139:13-16, Esther 4:14, Exodus 16:4, Lamentations 3:22-23 Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube @TheRestoredOrchard and visit www.therestoredorchard.org [http://www.therestoredorchard.org] for more resources.

No Good Thing Withheld: What Coveting Reveals about How We See God

Out of all ten commandments, the one we commonly struggle with is the last one. The one that lives in the interior, the one nobody else can see us breaking: thou shall not covet. In this episode, we're exploring what coveting actually is, what it reveals about how we see God, and what Scripture says about God. Coveting is innate. We were born with it, and social media gave it a gym...an infinite scroll of other people's lives to measure our lives against. The threshold for coveting has never been lower, and the relational impact is real because we can't be genuinely present with the people God gave us when we're always measuring our lives against someone else's highlight reel. We'll discover that coveting is a theology problem before it's a discipline problem. When we covet, we're saying God distributed things unfairly, that He gave them something good and kept it from us. We'll sit with Psalm 84:11's promise that no good thing does He withhold, Matthew 7's logic about how much more a perfect Father knows what is actually good, and the invitation to seek His face instead of watching His hand. Because either we believe He's a good Father who gives good gifts with full knowledge and wisdom, or we don't. And if we do, then what someone else has can't threaten what God has for us. Scripture: Exodus 20:17, Psalm 84:11, Matthew 7:9-11, Psalm 34:10 Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube @TheRestoredOrchard and visit www.therestoredorchard.org [http://www.therestoredorchard.org] for more resources.

He's in the Room: Hard Conversations, Confrontation, and God's Justice

"Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." You've probably heard Matthew 18:20 quoted in prayer circles or when Sunday attendance was low.... but what if we've been reading it completely disconnected from what it's actually saying? In this episode, we're going back to Matthew 18 to see what this passage is really about. Hint: It's not primarily about prayer or attendance. It's about what to do when relationships break down. The "two or three gathered" are witnesses called in to help address a rupture between believers. The gathering is hard, uncomfortable, involving confrontation and correction. And right in the middle of that, Jesus says, "I am there". We'll explore what it means that God is present on both sides of the table in hard conversations, the category of behavior that only survives when we forget He's watching (sly comments, subtle retaliation, quiet maneuvering), and why Romans 12:19 is a faith statement about whether we actually trust God to handle justice. You'll discover the imprecatory Psalms filled with raw, unfiltered prayers bringing offense directly to God instead of acting on it yourself and how to steward hard relational moments with awareness that He's already in the room. Context matters. When we pull verses out of their setting, we build beliefs on things the text never meant to say. Scripture: Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 12:19, Psalm 58, Psalm 109, Psalm 137 Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and YouTube @TheRestoredOrchard and visit www.therestoredorchard.org for more resources. Host: Sabrian Enoch