Vine

Busy. We are a busy group of people. Some of us are too busy. Some of us are way too busy. Some of us even wear the label “busy” as a badge of honor. We can confuse busyness with importance.

I’m guilty as charged for being busy. I have 26 minutes to write this column. It’s late Thursday afternoon. I’m leaving early in the morning to Oklahoma City to speak at a conference about church planting and church leadership tomorrow night and Saturday. I just finished up the sermon. I had a meeting earlier today. I pick up David in 24 minutes and then we get Benjamin after that. Wednesday I did my best to answer all my email. I got my haircut and some of the grey magically disappeared as well. I’m not going to bore you with the rest of my schedule but I spent time in Lincoln at the University with a statistics professor who is helping me with my dissertation. I led a couple meetings. I tried to do some forward thinking, visionary stuff this week, and did a decent job, but wasn’t quite as creative or long-term as I wanted to be. The rest of my week involved soccer games, diapers, cleaning, cooking, driving, etc…

I know some of you very well. (I just got a phone call that took 7 minutes and now have about 11 minutes to finish.) I don’t know some of you at all – although I hope that changes! But I do know this: many of you are busy too. Some of you work longer hours than I do. Some of you have more kids than I have. Many of us find ourselves in a similar boat.

I find the times in my life when I am most busy are generally the times in my life when I am most disconnected from God. Trying to be a good spouse or a good parent or a good employee or a good volunteer – these are all good things. But there can always be too much of a good thing and our lives can easily get out of balance. Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

A simple truth of life is that we rely on our resources and our strength and our power—we will accomplish what we can accomplish as a spouse, a parent, a worker, a volunteer, a whatever. When we connect to the Vine and His resources, strength, and power, we open ourselves up to the power of God and will produce much fruit.

Think about this Scripture this week:

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” –Matthew 11:28

I pray for all of us this week and every week that we find rest in God and that because of His strength and power that our lives will bear much fruit.

The best is yet to come…

Craig