Goal or Gift?

Goal or Gift?

January always makes us think of new beginnings. The glitter of white snow gives us a sense that the old can be made right again. For me, the fact that it’s my birthday month adds to this sense of beginning.

There are many things we try to start anew. Learning new hobbies or getting back to old ones, reading new books or rereading favorites, investing in people or renewing old friendships. Another new start may be getting to know our Lord better.

So how do we approach these new beginnings? Do we get out our planners, plotting and planning how to rearrange the realities of our lives so we can do the things we feel we must? Do we take control of the situation, trying our best to accomplish more? Do we take the advice of the best minds of our world and begin to be proactive, assertive and focused?

There’s no doubt that the principles of business produce results in many cases. There may be times when these principles are needed, but can this be transferred to our spiritual lives? I think we need to be careful to think it through. Using a worldly principle may not be the best way to grow in our relationship with God.

I find it interesting that Jesus uses so many plant analogies. We don’t know as much about plants and their needs as we used to when people’s lives and the lives of plants were more interconnected. In our world of strip malls and tended landscaping, many of us cannot even keep a houseplant alive.

But I think it’s worth it to try to think about caring for plants and how it’s different from how we approach our goals. For a plant caretaker, a healthy plant is the goal. The fruit comes out of the health.

In our culture, we tend to look for the fruit. The more fruit the better. We want the plant to produce larger, better fruit for longer periods of time. We want to overlook the cycles of plants: times of growth, times of fruit and times of rest.

We like to build things. It’s faster, more to the point and it doesn’t take as much patient care as growing things. Plants on the other hand require patience, and nurturing. It isn’t about forcing a screw into a steel beam, but about providing what something needs to grow. It’s out of our control, and that makes us uncomfortable.

So who is the plant? Jesus talks about being the vine, and us being the branches. We need to bear fruit, but a plant doesn’t bear fruit all year. It’s working at being a healthy branch all year to bear fruit in season. So, just because there’s no visible fruit today, that does not mean it’s a worthless branch.

If we then are the branch, what do we do? The vine draws up the nutrients from the ground, the branches simply abides in the vine. This sort of passive activity disturbs me deep down. I was taught to do something, not to be something. But I am asked to abide, and Jesus says that His Father is the gardener. (John 15:1)

So we are asked to submit, not to plan, to become closer to our God. What a disturbing and freeing realization! I do not have to build my spiritual life like a building, or plan it like a well-executed project. I am called to be a branch that bears fruit, having abided in the vine and been taken care of by the gardener. Our fruitfulness is a gift, not a goal: a gift of health if we allow the gardener to take care of us, and abide in the life-giving vine.

Verses to Ponder

John 15
The Vine and the Branches

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=50&chapter=15&version=31