A Slick Set of Drawers

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  John 15: 4

Jesus’ imagery here is a little sneaky.  It’s funny that He calls us branches in a vine, not say, branches in an oak tree or perhaps a mesquite.  I was thinking about that.  I was thinking that it might be a lot nicer to be an oak tree or a mesquite.  If you cut off one of those suckers, you have a fairly nice piece of wood there.  You can use it to make a slick set of drawers or maybe turn ‘em into a lamp or a chair.  You can polish that baby up and have a nice piece of something, that’s for sure.  Imagine, you could be a really solid side table in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Vines, on the other hand, are totally worthless when they are cut off from the main enchilada.  They instantly loose strength and become limp noodles- aka- perhaps useful for snapping around and hitting people in the face but not at all useful for building things. 

But I guess that’s the point: we are made for the express purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever- the catch being that you actually have to be somewhat connected to Him in order to do the said glorifying and enjoying, much less have any active fruit-production in your life.  The point is that if we are disconnected from God, all we end up doing is whipping around and hurting people despite our best intentions.  On the other hand, if we are connected to Him, all sorts of juicy goodness can flow from our hearts and minds and thoughts.  We can be used to bring life and oxygen into barren, suffocated deserts.