Have you had a moment like this?
You’re reading a verse in the Bible that you’ve read a gazillion times before, but this time when you read it, it reads differently. The words are no longer black, small font letters on tissue-thin paper, and the message isn’t one to skim because it’s familiar.
Instead, the words are posted on an extra-large, industrial-strength freeway banner, written in bright red letters highlighted in neon yellow. The message grabs my attention and says Don’t miss this!
These words caused me to pull-off my freeway of responsibilities a few days ago and take a breath:
“I am the vine. You are the branches.” (John 15:5)
The trouble is…
I don’t always want to be just a branch.
I remember from books read that the vine is the source of life for the branches. The branches are nothing—they die—if they are not connected to the vine.
But in my not-so-good moments, I want to be the branch. And the vine. And the support that holds the vine. And the fruit. And the sunshine that nourishes it all.
I’m focused on being responsible. Doing. Fixing. Controlling. Getting everything done. For everybody.
But God reminded me …
He doesn’t want me to be a fixer of all things. He wants me to remain. Abide with Him. Be with Him.
He does the fixing.
“Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
Take this encouragement and let it sit in your heart today:
You do not have to be—you should not be—the fixer of all things. You are not responsible for everything and everyone in front of you. God will never give you a to-do list that belongs to Him.
You are loved by a God who puts the stars in place and names them. So, yeah. He is much more capable than you and I to take care of what needs to be fixed. This Really Big God – the Almighty God – never intended for you to carry all the burdens, solve everyone’s problems, and hold everyone together. That’s His job.
He asks you to be with Him. And the fruit, the solutions, the comfort, will come. In His perfect way.
My Norwegian friend, O. Hallesby, wrote this heart-squeezing sentence in the book “Prayer.” (He’s not technically my friend. He died in 1961. But anyone who can write so beautifully and simply about prayer and is also from Norway … well, I want him to be my friend.)
Anyway. Here’s what he wrote:
“Our helplessness has now become the quiet, sustaining power of our prayer life.”
Yes, yes, yes.
My place as the branch is a helpless place, dependent on the Vine for everything.
O. reminds me that it is in that helplessness that my prayer life grows.
And that’s what my heart longs for.
My helplessness is a good thing. I need to learn to sit in it.
We can rest.
Let God be God.
Trust Him to give us what we need, when we need, in the manner He knows is best.
