Good morning…
I just stumbled upon a fascinating Bible story, expressed vividly in the Message translation.
On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren’t bathed and cleaned up, you weren’t rubbed with salt, you weren’t wrapped in a baby blanket. No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed—a newborn nobody wanted.
And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, “Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!” And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed (Ezekiel 16:4-7).
Sometimes life’s ugly harshness happens on the day we are born. Sometimes pain pierces much later on. But each time we are beaten up by life, we are pruned back to our original state, naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.
And then God comes by, finding us miserable and bloodied, filthy and helpless. When our Creator tenderly looks us in the eye, what words fill our ears? “Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!”
In John 15:4-5 (MSG) Jesus continues to encourage us, “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.”
All of us have miserable moments. Somewhere along the way, life bloodies us. What are we to do? How can we live on? Suffering in our unwashed, unwanted place, we are given an opportunity. From our belittled, battered state, we will grow tall and mature, full-breasted and flowing IF we stay intimately connected to God. IF we separate ourselves from the Vine when we are ripped raw by life, our one-of-a-kind branch will produce nothing at all.
“I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned” (Matthew 3:11-12, MSG).
…Sue…
