Pumpkin Vine

I saw a pumpkin vine last weekend and it was rather impressive. It was a lush and green vine and was very, very large. After looking at the vine and peeking under the leaves, I was surprised by what I found. There were little blossoms and many stems, but all was for naught. How could there be a stem without a pumpkin at the end of it? Where were the pumpkins? Way down under the green leaves there was one tiny pumpkin. It was still green and might have eventually turned into a pumpkin of some size, but there wasn't going to be time.

The next day, I went for a walk and started thinking about that vine. I realized that my life was a lot like the vine. I was spending a lot of time worrying about this and fussing about that and trying to fix this and trying to figure out that. I was spending time growing my vine. Things were looking good and are flourishing. But then there were the empty stems and where were the pumpkins? Where was the vegetable that I was SUPPOSED to be growing?

Jesus says "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because aprt from me you can do nothing." John 15:5.

So here I am in life, trying to grow a vine. And the little branches without anything on them? They are my attempts at abiding. I get going for a little while, but then I falter and there is no fruit (or in this case, vegetable). And sometimes, I even produce a little "vegetable" and it starts to grow, but it never seems to fully develop. These are both times in my spiritual journey when I'm working on the disciplines and working on listening to God and working on what God would have me do and I'm abiding in Him. He's working on the vine and I'm trying to abide. I'm getting some little shoots and a tiny vegetable, but that's all.

You might remember earlier I said that the little pumpkin in the real vine that I saw didn't have much time. That's because the owner of the pumpkin vine told me that in the morning, he was going to pull out that vine because it wasn't producing any pumpkins. Again, Jesus said "He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit". Therefore, Jesus is going to prune me and prune me until I start listening to him and bearing "vegetables" rather than working on my vine. The vine is God's job, I need to work on my "insides" to grow vegetables that God can use.

So, this is my Listening to God story. And the reason it happened at all was because I was willing to pull to earphones out of my head when I walked that day and God spoke to me. He opened a little window so that I could learn something about my life and my walk with Him. May we all learn how to listen to God when He speaks and learn to provide places and circumstances for that to happen. And in that, may be we all bear "vegetables" to His glory.