Leave the Gardening up to God
This is the final week of the “I Am” statements. Previously we discussed Jesus being the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Gate and Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, and The Way, The Truth and The Life.
As living things, we are either growing or dying. It takes intentional work to grow to our full potential. We need to be nurtured and watered. We need to have the dead parts cut away. We need a good Gardener that knows what will help us produce good fruit.

It’s the time of year when planting and gardening are happening. In the children’s message, Wilma used a small tomato plant as a visual. She spoke about how much she enjoyed tomatoes and all the different things that they could be used for. She also said how disappointed she would be if the plant didn’t produce fruit.
We don’t want to disappoint God by not producing fruit.
I know I’ve witnessed this at home, as Debby has new plants sitting in the kitchen sink being watered until she can get them planted. She’s also cutting straggling limbs from bushes and trimming the rose bush.

One of these examples is that rose bush that Debby was pruning. It was planted by my grandmother years ago. It produces a lot of beautiful flowers because it gets pruned every year.

Another example of the importance of gardening is a tree that we planted a year ago. Things had been dry, and it appeared that I hadn’t been watering it enough. When the other trees began to bud, it appeared to be dying. I amped up the watering schedule and now … it appears that it may survive. I may need to prune some dead branches that will take away from the live ones.
These things will result in better plants and a prettier yard.

In John 15:1-8, Jesus told His disciples, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts away every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit. But he trims clean every branch that does produce fruit, so that it will produce even more fruit.
Just as a branch cannot produce fruit unless it stays joined to the vine, you cannot produce fruit unless you stay joined to me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me. If you don’t stay joined to me, you will be thrown away. You will be like dry branches that are gathered up and burned in a fire.”
Pruning happens in our lives. We need to have the bad, unproductive things cut away. This can be painful but beneficial. It helps us produce better fruit.
Too often we try to be the gardener in our lives. We need to remember that God is the Gardener.
