Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Vine

As Pastor Sara lifts the bread high, the boy in the plaid shorts with the crown of whorled blond hair climbs onto the padded pew. Grabbing his dad’s shirt with one hand, he raises the other hand toward the ceiling, fingers splayed like a small, creamy starfish.

The dad knows what’s next – clearly this is a weekly routine. He lifts the boy until his flip-flops rest on the back of the pew in front of him. Clenching a fist-full of polo shirt, the boy straightens tall and steady, feet firmly planted on the back of the pew, his father’s arm encircling his waist like a lasso. And then the boy watches, steady and solemn, as Pastor Sara lifts the cup of wine toward the sky.

The little boy with the blond hair knows instinctively what I so often forget. He reaches, he climbs, he clings. He rests steady, comfortable and secure in his father’s arms.

He knows and accepts what I can never seem to remember: that apart from his father, he can do nothing.

“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. “ (John 15:4)

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