God is the Vine; We Stay

Day Ten of Three hundred and Sixty-five
July 14, 2010
God is the Vine; We Stay

This week I’ve been hanging out with the kids at my church and we’ve been learning how to Worship With the Word. The idea is that the Word of God is like a suitcase packed full and you have to unpack it to find all the great things/treasures hidden inside. We’ve been teaching different ways to unpack. Yesterday was revelation, finding out who God is (go figure) and what He is saying. We were unpacking John 15.

Several of the kids focused on the Gardner and not being cut off, which I will journal tomorrow. One group of kids focused on being in the vine. Camilla prayed (I paraphrase), “Thank you that we can do nothing by ourselves, but with you we can do all things.” That prayer was based on John 15:5, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” The chorus that was created by the singers (also children) was, “You are the vine, I can do anything”, and it took flight to. From a music perspective, the instrumentation was right, the melody was right and all the kids fell right into the groove. Maybe they weren’t the most mature lyrics, but they got it! For about 10 minutes they let it the truth of God’s word soaked into their hearts. Yes!

I’ve been thinking about the verse since then and, for me, the part that grabs me is the abiding part. The Greek word for abide in this scripture is meno and it means to remain or stay. There are a lot reasons to stay. Like, bearing fruit and that we can do all things when we do. But, the best reason, according to this scripture, is He stays too, “He who abides in me, and I in him….” I stay, He stays. I’m not just a garden ornament…a pinwheel that spins in the breeze…I’m a branch. All He has remains in me because all I am remains in Him. Again, relationship, positional, a constant back and forth with God.

Who is God? He is the True Vine that stays. Our response to Him? Stay!