Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Grapes

Published by christi on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019

Someday I will write a book called, “Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Grapes.”

As easy as it is to grow grapevines, tending them so as to get a bountiful harvest is an ongoing struggle. One year there are grape-leaf skeletonizers. The next year there are leaf-hoppers and thrips. If I don’t bag the fruit, the birds devour the crop before we get a bite!

I have three varieties of grapes. With two of them I pretty much know what I am doing. The third one is a vigorous, wildly rampant mystery. It doesn’t matter how I prune it, each year it grows back seemingly with an eye to taking over the world! It has branches that run this way and shoots that go that way and fruit that sprouts abundantly…the problem is that when the fruit grows too closely together, there is no room for the breeze to blow between the berries and, despite our hot, dry climate, mold grows.

Last year, between unnamed bugs and mold caused by crowding, I lost the entire harvest from that vine.

Unfortunately, I seem to be like that third grapevine: intent on world domination. (Cue the contra-bass trombone and tympani.) I have so many interests and things I want to learn, so many people I care about and a whole host of things that need to be looked after. I am wondering if my very full, branches-growing-every-which-way life isn’t very much like that grape vine: lots of potential, lots of energy, but not very much fruit that remains for anyone to enjoy.

Jesus said, “I chose you… so that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” and “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and thus prove to be my disciples.”

Without fruit, is there any way to demonstrate that I am a #dishwaterdisciple ? Are there things He wants to prune out of my schedule? Or is He wanting to prune some “old nature” behaviors from my life? Maybe both…

I don’t have an answer yet. But I am pondering…and pruning my own vines…and smashing grape-leaf skeletonizers.

How is your fruit-bearing? Let’s chat about it. Leave a comment below.

Christi

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