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ABIDING IN HIM
Secret to growing fruit

A Commentary by Constance Vanides

The day was cold and drab. Bare branches on the tree in front of our house reminded me that winter was not yet over. On closer inspection, a small branch showed clusters of tightly closed buds. I remembered hearing about “force blooming,” by cutting a branch and bringing it inside and letting it sit in fresh water.

More than just “letting it sit,” I placed a twig of a branch onto a slate-like rock, specially drilled with a hole to hold water. The twig’s graceful curve seemed to spring out of the rock. We watched daily as each bud opened up into five dainty light pink petals. As if to emphasize its “coming out “party”, stamens and pistils pushed out from the middle of each tiny blossom, announcing its new arrival!

Other buds followed suit in clusters, together bringing forth the delightful incense of flowering plum.

    “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” (John 15:4)

    “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

How like our lives is this cutting from the main branch! Created and nurtured by God, although a beautiful miniature of the tree, this cut twig in its separation is short-lived. The other branches left on the tree will bring forth their blooms later, at a timing of their own. With the warmth of Spring days just ahead, the whole tree will soon be in full blossom, adorned as a bride for her husband. So long as the branches continue attached to the branches and trunk of the tree, the fruit will develop from its present showy blooms into full maturity of growth.

It’s nice to bring flowering blossoms into our home to enjoy. But, in fruit-bearing trees, we’ll never get to enjoy the mature fruit that way!

MY FRUIT IN YOU
You are known by the friends you make.
Do others know you hold to Me?
The fruit you bear is there
because you exist in Me.
I am the One who makes you grow
and develops you into
that mature, perfected fruit,
ready for all I’ve created you to be.
People will taste My goodness,
My faithfulness you bring to them
because it is from Me.

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© Constance Vanides