Deciduous Delight

(Link to Original)

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches”  Jesus said.  “Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.  For apart from me you can do nothing.”   John 15.5

I’ve been thinking again.  (Get used to it.)  

If we —if I— will but continually, consistently draw my life from Him and place my identity in Him, I will do well.

It’s so easy for me to imagine my identity grows out of my accomplishments. My heritage.  My failures. My service. My struggles. The depth of my joy. 

No.  While those warrant monitoring and offer indications of my health as a branch, I am who I am in Christ. None other.  I have placed my faith in Him for salvation (as can you).  He is its author, as well as the creator and sustainer of life.  Who better to draw from for life – day after day after day, even in winter?  If He has all He needs to rescue from sin, forgive, and offer eternal life, will He not provide all I need to live well in Him as I live obediently, receiving each day’s sustenance and victory an hour at a time?  If I draw my everything from Him I will do well.  To let my focus shift blurs the rest of life.

It’s a simple but profound matter of ongoing volitional resolve:

• He being the Vine, I but a branch, I will draw my stability from Him.
• I will relay my compliments to Him since He gave me my abilities, presents the opportunities, and allocates the resources I use to respond to them (including this blog).
• Disapproval from without, like wind and dust, need not impair my relationship to the trunk of the Vine.  I will pull in closer where I can feel the acceptance I have in the Beloved (Eph. 1.6 KJV)  renew, and reach out again.
• Secure and safe in Him, I will weather the storm at hand whatever it may be.  He hears my whimpers as readily as He hears my cries of jubilance.  I am in Him.

So let the temperatures plummet!

Let the wind drift the snow!

Let the Spring storms come – lightning and all.

Summer’s drought.

Fall’s first frost.

Jesus Christ is my all. 

“The Vine,” He called Himself, and I am grafted into Him. 

 

When between my shivvers He whispers “I am with you, Child — always,”

I will remember and relax in Him.  Safe.  Secure. Unafraid.  Hopeful.

 

It’s a delight, even for the deciduous.

Even in the dead of winter.

 

Selah~

—PLR—