Climbers

As I sit in my living room, I am looking out my window at the grape vines that cover the arbor I built a few years ago. The vines are only a couple of years old, but they have completely covered the arbor giving us shade for the times we decide to eat our meals outside. We love the Mediterranean look and feel it gives us to look up and see the grapes over our heads as we eat.

However, these grape vines create a lot of work for me. You see, they are never content to grow just where I want them to grow. They are constantly reaching and climbing. I am amazed that they can grow horizontally up to four feet with no support. They also seem to know in which direction to grow where there will be something for them to use as support. How do they do that?

They are not the only plants in my yard that do this. On the front porch I have both Clematis and Morning Glory plants which are both climbers. In the garden, I have pole beans and cucumbers, all of which are climbers. Each of them are constantly growing and searching for something to use as their ladder toward the sky. Why do they do that?

Because I asked for wisdom, I know the answer (see yesterday’s blog). All of these plants are fruit bearers. In order to bear more fruit, they must grow constantly to provide more area to photosynthesize (the process by which plants utilize sunlight to produce food). You see, I do know more than John 3:16. Instinctively, they know that they must continue to grow to produce.

It is the same with us. As Christians, we are supposed to bear much fruit, but in order to do this we must constantly be growing. We need to be climbing and reaching for more and more knowledge and wisdom, for more revelation. If we fail to grow, we fail to produce fruit.

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. Heb 5:11-12

I have noticed something else about these climbing plants. It seems to me that if a new plant doesn’t have something close by to begin climbing, its growth is stunted. But as soon as I put something close to it on which to climb, it seems to grow twice as fast. As a mentor, I need to make sure that I give my protégés something to reach toward, something by which they can grow spiritually and bear fruit.

Jesus told us in John 15:8, “"My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Therefore, let us continually be climbing and bearing fruit for Him.