Saturday, October 27, 2012

Lesson From A Strawberry Plant

Summer started out for us with our usual wet weather and like a lot of other summers, when July rolled around, the weather changed and we went from wet to very dry with no rain at all for week after week.  We don't have to do a lot of watering, we don't have a garden because there's too much rock in the ground.  Our grass dries up and is ugly but bounces back with the rain.  Our strawberry plants are in tubs in front of the house and slightly under a top level of the house that juts out over the lower level so even when it rains, they need to be watered.

The plants have sent out runners, in search of soil to start new plants but good soil under the pots is almost nonexistent, it's where cement was spilled during the pouring of the foundation walls over thirty years ago and also has a layer of gravel.  Over the summer, as I walked by the plants and felt sorry for all the runners in search of good soil, it finally occurred to me that the runners drew the water and nutrients from the plants in the pots, not the bad soil.  The life was in the vine, sound familiar?

As summer has turned to fall and now we're in the midst of a hot election, I'm reminded to abide in the vine, to draw my needs from the Source.  I can look around at the economy, listen to the forcasts of what the world will be like if we don't elect the right candidate and I can worry OR I can abide in the vine.  I can be like the stawberry runners, I might find myself on top of a rocky, hard spot but I can draw from the Source.  And my Source doesn't depend on a human supply of water during dry times, my Source is never ending.  Check out John 15:1-8,