Growing Vines Not Apple Trees
Growing Vines Not Apple Trees
My husband planted an apple tree but we’ve never eaten the apples. Back when our children were very young my husband and I lived in a beautiful two-story brick house. We loved that house. We lived there for many years. It had a fantastic yard on a quiet street. The house was our home.
One summer my husband found a company that sold apple trees that you could get delivered through the mail in order to plant in your own yard. Our area of the country does great with apple trees and this specific type of tree was one his grandmother used to have growing up. She would talk about how big the apples were and so juicy! He decided to plant one of these trees.
Little did we know that we would eventually move away from that house and never taste those apples. We do know the family who moved into the house, but we have not asked to taste the apples. Maybe one day we will.
Growing Vines
The other day I was talking with a friend and she and I were talking about growth. As she spoke, I realized that the growth she was describing wasn’t like an apple tree at all. Growth was more like a vine. The purpose of planting and growing an apple tree is to get the fruit. Some plants are grown simply because they produce fruit. Other plants are planted to grow and grow, but without a certain type of “fruit.”
Tweet ThisI have a plant I got a little over a year ago for my living room. That plant is a vining plant. I hung it in my window from a hook attached to the ceiling. In just a little under two years it has grown all the way to the floor. It does not produce flowers or fruit. It is simply a green plant with leaves, and it is my favorite plant.
Abiding in Christ Is Like a Vine
Spiritual growth is more like a vining plant than a fruit tree. Although we do have “fruit” in our lives and there is a time and place for that. The passage in John 15 is clear about growth and fruit. But the idea of John 15 and growth is less about what we produce and more about how to produce it. This verse tells us how to abide in Christ.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
Abiding in Christ is like a vine, not a tree. We do not grow bigger and stronger so we can prudence fruit. We grow longer and deeper. The longer we grow the more dependent we are on the Source of our growth: Jesus.
How to Abide in Christ
- Read His word.
- Pray daily.
- Gather together with other believers.
- Study God’s word.
- Seek to serve those around us.
I hope this is an encouragement to you because it is for me. Although John 15 also talks about bearing fruit, we have to remember we are not really the source of the fruit, we are simply instruments to hold the fruit. We would not look at a grape vine and say, “Wow, those branches are growing such great fruit!” We would hardly even notice the branches. We would praise the vine itself.
I don’t want to be responsible for the fruit, but I’ll gladly bear it for my Savior. He is the true source of love, joy, and peace in my life. When we realize that it is the Vine’s fruit (and not the branches’ fruit) we can also rest.
I love this quote by Oswald Chambers:
Discipleship has no impulsiveness in it….We don’t need the supernatural grace of God in order to weather crises; human nature and pride are sufficient for that. But we do need his grace in order to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a child of God, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We think that we have to do exceptional things for God, but this is true. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, and this isn’t learned in five minutes.