A Harvest of Faithfulness
By Rebekah Montgomery
To John, my faithful husband
Part 1 — The Sweet Fruit of a Faithful Relationship with God
Faith in God coupled with our faithfulness to God are the legs that support our walk with
Him. The more we trust God to be faithful to us, the more we will be willing to step out to do His
will, the farther and faster we will move forward His kingdom on earth.
I Heard Him Through the Grapevine
Once upon a time while living on our little farm in Ohio, my husband and I found a dried
up grapevine among the department store markdowns at the end of the planting season. It was
unpromising bit of vegetation, but we bought it anyway.
I had idyllic childhood memories of laying under the neighbor’s shady grape arbor on hot
August days. Also of playing war with the ripening grapes (They were purple and we could
always tell who was “wounded!”), sucking the luscious fruit out of the skin, and later eating jelly
on homemade bread. I wanted my children to have some of those same experiences.
So Hubby and I dug a hole and plunked in the grapevine not at all sure it would survive.
But it did! The next year, it shot runners all over the makeshift arbor and produced a
luxuriant abundance of leaves — and a few measly grapes.
I was disappointed. My jelly jars and I were all ready to put up royal purple grape jelly.
Instead, the children and I ate about four grapes apiece and called it a year.
The next Spring armed with a gardening book, pruning shears, and high hopes, I set to
work on the little vine. I learned that grapevines produce two kinds of branches: producing and
non-producing suckers. The trick was to determine which was which.
With amateur skill and great enthusiasm, I hacked away. When I was finished, Hubby
stroked his chin while regarding its sorry state and asked, “Have you called the funeral home to
make arrangements?”
To everyone’s surprise, not least of all my own, the little vine bore grapes! Not a great
abundance, but considering its tender age and unpromising beginnings, I was impressed. Each
subsequent year, I got better at pruning and it got better at bearing grapes. A little fertilizer here,
a little bug killer there, and the harvests began to be substantial.
As I worked on my grapevine, training the fruit-bearing limbs on the arbor and snipping
off the non-bearing suckers, I often thought about Jesus tending the wild tendrils of my life. I
mused about His high hopes for my fruit-bearing potential, and shamefacedly realized that He,
no doubt, was disappointed with my crop of bug-ridden, disease prone spiritual fruit.
And then something occurred to me: The major difference between my fruit bearing and
the branches on my little grapevine was that I had a choice as to how attached to the True Vine I
wanted to be. My little grapevine did not. Its branches wholeheartedly clung to the vine and just
naturally bore fruit as the result.
But I choose how much of the life giving, fruit-producing sap of the Holy Spirit I want
flowing to my leaf-buds. By doing so, I choose how much spiritual fruit I will bear and of what
quality.