We were created to be hungry for God, to know Him, and to love Him with all of our beings.
In her book, This is How We know: The Intention of Fruit, Lori Reece has given us 19 paintings to visually explore how that hunger should increase our desire to produce good fruit for him. Through her dynamic artwork and honest narrative, she invites you to ask:
– Am I Hungry for Him? If not, what is ruining my appetite?
– If the fruit is true to the tree, then what does my fruit say about me?
– Am I sharing my fruit or am I hording it?
… a peek inside the book
Love
When God floods our hearts with His overwhelming love, He begins a new creation in us through His Spirit. The first fruit of the Spirit is love, and the first step in growing this fruit is to recognize God’s immense love for us.
Life
The Fruit of God’s Love (Tree of Life) – In the Garden of Eden, fruit was something that God specifically made for His creation to enjoy. God’s design for the Tree of Life was to share His own life with those who ate its fruit.
Redemption
The Fruit of God’s Grace (Redemption) -The Tree of Calvary is how we can again eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life. Through His crucifixion, Jesus’ life was sacrificed and spiritually sown into the earth. The cross is how we go from condemned to redeemed, from death to life, from separation from God to reconciliation with Him.
The Strangled Heart
The seed falling on the ground in this rich soil is easily rooted and shoots up. Even so, hiding in the soil are the seeds of thorny weeds, which are the worries, riches, and pleasures that distract our hearts from hearing the Word. (From Jesus’ parable of the Sower.)
… about the author
The fruit is true to the tree.
Lori Reece is an artist who grew up in the tropics of Central America, where she acquired a second language and a taste for exotic fruit. The exuberant beauty of that part of the world also gave her an early sense of wonder, and a keen eye for color and light.
Throughout her many-colored days, Lori has been an educator, an entrepreneur, and a caregiver. Besides her paintbrushes, she also holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and has been a doctoral student at the University of Florida.
As an avid reader, Lori has always loved the way that words paint pictures in her mind. In her new book, “This Is How We Know – The Intention of Fruit ”, Lori has flipped the script by first speaking in a visual language on nineteen canvases, which are beautifully captured inside the book. Her writing is the act of translating these images back into the language of words, in order to make their meaning clear.
Lori’s fruit obsession led to the inspiration for her paintings and the resulting book, as she followed the design pattern of fruit throughout the Bible. She calls the body of work that grew out of this study visual meditations. Speaking with color and light, Lori takes the reader on a journey that will hopefully create a hunger for discovering who God is, and a desire to be who we were created to be.
Lori lives with her eyes full of wonder, and her heart full of hope on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Florida with her family.