THE PETALS HAVE FALLEN

     This week, God taught me that as great and wonderful as it is to be enveloped by his presence, the intensity is too great for our mortal beings to sustain it for a long period of time.

    Like the tiny, white pear blossoms that have graced my yard with their beauty for the past 3 weeks, and started raining down on my driveway and car over the past week, God's incredible and fragrant blessings have been blooming in my life and the lives of other people I worship corporately with.  This past Thursday, at our weekly worship practice, God reminded me that the petals are falling but there's still more.

     As I was driving to worship practice, I began to ask God what he wanted to teach me.  I knew this past week was "peek week" for me because I felt as though I had reached a pinnacle in my walk with God...only to discover so much more yet to learn and experience. I asked God "What's next?  What do you want me to do or learn now?"  This is the message I received:

    I have bloomed, yet again.  The blossoms on the vine inspire beauty and hope of fruit.  But the graceful petals are falling to the ground and you are the leaves that must continue the work I have started in you.  It is the leaves of the vine that soak in the sunshine so my vine can produce food to feed the whole vine.  It is the leaf that grows bigger each day until maturity and then continues to do the job it is designed to do...produce food for the growth of fruit.  "I am the vine and you are the branches" with leaves.  Continue  my work until the seasons change again.  Then you will rest and I will redesign you for the next season.  

     My effectiveness is manifested in your growth on the vine.  Continue growing with me and I will bless you with fruit that will weigh your branches to the point of bending but you will not break.  Those who thirst and hunger for me will pick your fruit and find life in me.

     What you are doing is a hard but beautiful thing.  When the harvest is gathered, we will celebrate.  Thank you my child for being in my vine.

Maybe you have been experiencing growth and blooms in your walk with God.  Praise God for that!  Don't be discouraged when the "pretty" part of that journey seems to fade.  Be encouraged that you may be in the life-giving stage of your walk with God.    

John 15:4-6 (New International Version)

⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

 ⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

Keep growing and seeking God.