"I am the Vine"

Sometimes I think it is a curse of mine that I am always thinking.  As I get farther away from my concussion, the horror of endless, useless thinking is creepy back into my everyday existence.  Oh, I'm sure some people think it is great to always be thinking and dreaming.  For me, however, I feel like my head gets so filled with thoughts, quotes, comments and ideas that I can't seem to focus on any one of them for long enough for anything to be effective (or make any sense!).

Thus said, I need to get into the habit of sitting down, writing out my thoughts and then moving on with my life...or at least moving on to the next thought.  So here is the:

Thought for the Day.

I was thinning my apricot tree two weeks ago and wondering what the spiritual implication of my task at hand might be?  I am always eager and looking for ways God speaks to me through nature.  I am a big believer in the natural speaking of the supernatural. (in simpler terms: concrete, earthly things giving us a window into spiritual truths & lessons.) What could I learn from this poor over-loaded tree?

Picking off perfectly-growing green fruit is very hard to do! I am purposely killing beautiful fruit; good fruit that has the potential to feed my family!  Why would I do such a thing?  Last year I did not thin my apricot tree.  The result: no harvest.  Oh, I had an abundance of tiny, green and orange apricots that my golden retriever enjoyed, but no fruit was good enough to bring inside and enjoy.

The analogy of me, as a Children's Ministry leader, choosing which "apricots" to take care of and nourish and which "apricots" to pluck off is a shuddering thought.  It seems cruel to make that determination if my apricots were actually children I work with and love so much.  This over-burdened fruit tree cannot possibly reflect Christ's heart to let many die for the sake of a few!  I am positive Jesus would not want me to choose my "favorite" children to nurture and let the rest die (spiritually speaking of course)! That does not align with scripture at all.

As I thinned my tree I scrolled through numerous passages of Scripture, in my mind searching for a connection.  There must be a lesson in this task!

Perhaps, if a Ministry Leader represents the tree, God is saying that one person alone cannot be expected to care for so many people, instead we need teams of people.  If too many people (apricots) are being "fed" from one source, the maturation of all the fruit involved will suffer.  Hmmm...that's a thought, but that seems a little bleak and negative.  Still, that does not quite seem right, there must be more to this load of fruit than that!

At the moment when I debated giving up my search for a connection between thinning my tree and a truth from God, John 15:5 suddenly rattled through my core, "I am the vine..."  The verse goes on, but I was caught dumb-founded by the noun 'vine!'  God does not (thankfully) say, "I am the apricot tree..." instead he says, "I am the vine!"  My blackberry vines are covered in an array of blossoms.  I have never thinned my blackberries because my vines can handle the heavy harvest.  Of course John continues to say that God does thin even the vines, but it is entire branches that are taken off due to poor harvest or disease- not a thinning due to an over-abundant harvest.  Thankfully also, God is the vine dresser, not me!  He can determine when it is time for a branch to go!

In the end, my apricot tree is thinned, and I am very glad Jesus is our vine, not a stone-fruit tree.