Dying Off the Vine

The rebuilding has begun. Shattered lives slowly being put together. Towns being reconstructed. Homes being restored. But nightmares of April’s horrific tornadoes smashing through Alabama, northern Georgia and southeastern Tennessee linger. As do similar memories in Joplin, Missouri and other ravaged communities.

The most massive tornadoes bypassed our part of the Tennessee Valley, but the devastation of smaller twisters remains:

Roots of trees, once buried deep, pointing helplessly toward the sky. Trunks of tall trees that stood proudly for years now chain-sawed into sections, good for nothing more than to be split for fireplaces next winter. Tree limbs that had extended gracefully, now broken and splintered, their chlorophyll-deprived leaves fading to dulled brown.

Those severed limbs are perhaps least important, yet their rapidly deteriorating beauty teaches a vital lesson, practical and stern: Branches depend totally upon their source of life – the tree trunk or the vine. Detached, they die. No leaves. No fruit. Just decay.

Jesus used the vine as a metaphor for how essential it is to remain attached to Him. “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” (John 15:5). The tornado-wrenched branches throughout our area bring imagery to this truth.

Do you ever wonder – with so many people professing to be “Christians” or “born again” – why we see so little evidence of Christ’s reality and presence in our society? I think it’s because we’re trying to be branches separate from the Vine.

“Pull yourself by your own bootstraps” has been America’s mantra. “God helps those that help themselves,” people declare, as if it’s written in the Bible. It’s not. “God is my co-pilot.” According to the Scriptures, God doesn’t want to be “co”-anything.

To the contrary, the apostle Paul wrote, “I can do everything through him (Jesus Christ) who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). With Christ we can do anything God calls us to do; without Christ we can’t do anything of consequence. “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me…I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last,” Jesus said (John 15:4,16).

I don’t know about you, but I want my life to bear fruit. And not the kind that spoils.

Who Knows What a Day Will Bring?

Two weeks ago today, countless thousands of residents across Alabama, Northwest Georgia and Southeastern Tennessee were hunkered down as wave after wave of tornadoes stormed through this region. To me, it ranks alongside the two-foot blizzard of March 1993 as the most momentous weather days for our area.

Most of us survived the day with little more than the inconvenience of power outages, disrupted communications and a few trees downed. But more than 300 people lost their lives. Thousands more had their homes destroyed or seriously damaged. For them, April 27, 2011 will be their own “date that will live in infamy,” to borrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unforgettable quote.

Two days after the storms I drove to Atlanta for a day of meetings. On my drive back home, traffic near Exit 348 at Ringgold, Ga. – where much of the tornado carnage occurred – had slowed to a crawl, almost in silent homage for those who had died or suffered great losses. One road sign read, “Ringgold Historic District.” Many of the historic structures had been swept away.

Ironically, several days later the weekly edition of “Monday Manna,” a business devotional I write and edit, was distributed around the world entitled, “Deep Roots for Weathering Life’s Storms.” I had prepared that particular commentary two months earlier, observing that having a spiritual root system anchored by faith in Jesus Christ can enable us to endure the great challenges of life.

Reflecting on “the day of the tornadoes,” there’s another lesson to be learned. For days, weather experts had warned of an impending major storm, but no one anticipated an event spawning 259 tornadoes across the region in a single day. Many people awoke that morning expecting to stick close to home for safety; few thought their lives could be changed forever.

Perhaps that is why Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow…. Each day has enough troubles of its own” (Matthew 6:34).

April 27 also served as a reminder to cherish each day we don’t have to cope with horrific storms, whatever forms they take. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).