One of my son’s favourite books is BASIL THE BRANCH from THE LOST SHEEP series – about a branch who wants to bear fruit.
No matter how hard he tries, he can’t.
It’s only when he gives up in despair that he hears the voice from over his shoulder. It’s the vine. And it’s smiling at him, telling him to relax.
You see, Basil is only a branch. It is *impossible* for him to grow grapes all by himself. That’s not his job.
His job is just to focus on the vine. And *then* the grapes will grow – because it’s the vine that does the work, not each little, individual branch.
So that’s what Basil does. And you know what? After he focuses on the vine – and *does* grow a beautiful big bunch of grapes!
One of God’s ‘metaphors’ is that of being the vine. The cross-stitch picture uses the words ‘the true vine’ (from John 15 verse 1) and shows a picture of a bunch of grapes, with leaves and tendrils. John 15:5 says,
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
I find that pretty challenging: I’m one of those people who’s pretty self-reliant with a lot of stuff. ‘Apart from me you can do nothing’ kinda gets my hackles up – until I realise that I really *am* just a branch. And I need One who’s greater than me, to be able to achieve anything worthwhile.
So that’s my takeaway lesson fro today. Jesus is the vine: my job is to just focus on Him!
Have a great day, dear reader 🙂
— KRidwyn
5 replies on “26 lessons from God’s metaphors: #22”
This post reminds me of a minister I knew when I was a kid. He was a leader in the Spring River Association (Missouri) of the Southern Baptist Convention and often visited the church I grew up in. The minister often referred to a passage in James: And ye shall know them by their fruit. He spoke about Christians as “fruit inspectors.” At the time this made sense to me, but it’s a slippery slope in that one can easily move from “fruit inspector” to fruit judge. One of my personal battles is dealing w/ my judgmental ways. I’m fine w/ kids, especially teens, but struggle almost daily w/ judging other adults. That’s a bit of a rabbit, but… Glenda from
Evolving English Teacher
This reminds me of the Einstein quote, If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll live its whole life thinking it’s stupid.
And then I just read Glenda’s comment and I thought to myself — Hey, lucky day, it’s a 2-for-1 in Kae’s blog. Thanks for the reminder, Glenda. I, too, suffer from being too quick to judge sometimes. I try to remember to reserve judgment for as long as you can.
Hi, you two! Thanks for your comments. I’m sorry, did I come off as judgemental here??! Sorry if I did – it was unintentional!!!
Anyway, thank you both, for stopping by and for taking the time to comment. I truly appreciate it! 😀
I didn’t think you came off as judgmental at all. I was simply reminded of that quote by your description of that book.
Looks like I’m early for W!
Oh! Okay; that makes sense. And ‘W’ is up now! 😀 It’s a pretty vulnerable one, today…