I always have a little giggle when I read Proverbs 31:16, “She plants a vineyard”. I nailed that. Seriously, my husband and I planted a vineyard. Our family business is making wine. The planting was 25 years ago, although I admit I got dirty mostly by playing with our toddlers in the soil rather than from planting. Nevertheless, since then we have tended our vines with devotion and use the fruit to make the most beautiful and luscious wines we can. Wine is not just a product to us, it’s a work of art, beauty in a bottle. As Galileo said, “Wine is sunlight held together by water.”
But making something beautiful is long and laborious work. Having done the hard work for 25 years has made it easy to understand why Jesus used vineyard imagery to teach us how to make our God breathed lives beautifully fruitful.
The biggest lesson is consistency. Those who imbibe our wine expect us to make quality wine year after year. They depend on us to produce constant quality. The most important factor in wine quality is the quality of the fruit; and the quality of the fruit depends on the health of the vines. The health of the vines depends on many factors, some within our control, many not like drought, flood, bushfires or hailstorms are not. Our job is to manage the vineyard well no matter the circumstances.
This is the same for our spiritual lives. We depend on our Great Viticulturalist to guide us through uncontrollable circumstances so we can maintain a consistent and quality relationship with him, ourselves and others.
There are some things we can do to keep the vines healthy in any circumstances, and they reflect Biblical truth so well.
Keep the soil healthy. Matthew 13:1-9.
Water the right amount. John 7:37-39
Allow just the right amount of sun on the sun by adjusting leaf cover. John 8:12
Prune in winter so regrowth is healthy. John 15:2
Stress the vines for the most intense flavours by limiting watering before harvest. Romans 5:3-5
Treat any potential diseases as quickly as possible. Hebrews 12:15-17
Keep wild pigs out of the vineyard. Song of Songs 2:15
Sometimes, no matter how hard we work all year, our labour can be for nothing. Vicious hail can destroy a year’s work in one day. Our crop can be lost in one night by black frost. It’s the same in life: tragic loss, shocking betrayal, unimaginable trauma, incurable disease. It can wipe the fruits of the Spirit out in one go.
We have faced losing a crop in one day more times than I like to remember. Sometimes in consecutive years. It happens. So, we had to learn how to deal. First, we grieve, feel frustrated, and feel angry at the injustice of it all. We come together as a team, comfort one another. Then we decide to start anew; not because it’s easy, not because we feel better, but because that is just who we are- winemakers.
In the same way, when a flood, storm or fire ravages the spiritual fruits, your patience, your joy, your self-control, your faith; you have to know who you are, a believer. And believers make luscious and beautiful lives like light held together by the Living water. So, you try anew. Not because you don’t feel sad anymore, not because you don’t feel damaged anymore but because that’s who you are. Year after year.
Elissa Macpherson is President of the Baptist Women of the Pacific- BWP. She is also an author and speaker.