Called to BE Free: on the vine

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23

By the end of May the Covid threat was lessening, so when aunt ‘Chelle called to recruit blueberry pickers, grandson #3 and I jumped at the chance. It was a gorgeous day. Didn’t matter that we had to drive twenty minutes. Didn’t matter that they had to take our temperature. We were free, our masks were off, and the blueberries were plentiful. Armed with the secret to efficiency—attach your pail to your belt so you can use both hands—we found a row to ourselves. 

Dawdling, I soon was alone, picking, tasting, musing. There were all sizes of berries on the bushes in all colors of ripeness from green to pink to that perfect dusty blueberry blue. If I inadvertently popped a not-so-ripe berry into my mouth, I knew immediately—that one should have stayed on the bush. It was either tart or as sour as could be.        

My mind was drawn to Jesus’ illustration in John 15 as He and the eleven walked through a vineyard on the way to Gethsemane that fateful Passover night: “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). By faith I am in Jesus, the Spirit alive in me ripening His fruit. When I remain in the vine, I will be free to let that happen to its spiritual sweetness.

And the fruit I bear tells the story I share with Jesus, to those who still need to be free. 

“We are living in a generation that listens with its eyes and thinks with its feelings. If they  cannot see the gospel in you and me they will not feel the persuasion of what you and I are trying to present to them.” Ravi Zacharias (Denison 5.22.20). 

It is no coincidence that the primary fruit of the Spirit is love. It makes sense to me that living attached to the vine is the key to the only thing that counts…faith expressing itself through love (5:6).

Nancy P