A Fruitful Summer
One's relationship with God is such a beautiful, multifaceted reality; it’s hard to summarize it with one image or metaphor that grasps the depth of our walk with Him. Each one we come across is ripe with possibilities for reflection and application in our lives. For example, God is our husband, and we are the bride; he is our Father, and we are his sons; he is the shepherd, and we are his sheep are some of the more famous ones. God’s people are also an olive and fig tree, clay, and, yes, of course, a vineyard.
God’s people as a vineyard and he the vinedresser, begins in the initial book of the Bible and reaches a climax at the last supper. God is the vinedresser, and we are the vine he has planted. As with the other metaphors, there is much we can glean from this, but two have stood out to our community in recent times. Firstly, if God is the vinedresser and we the vine, it is he who is responsible for our growth; he works with us to grow us and produce fruit. Our role is to yield, through spiritual practices, to his shaping of our lives.
A key point of this metaphor, as Isaiah 5, the song of the vineyard, and Jesus’ Olivet discourse make abundantly clear, is that God, as the vinedresser, works with us to produce fruit. There ought to be a visible, tangible effect of our relationship with God on those around us. This fruit can be Christ-like character traits that God forms within us. As well as the kingdom of God realities that we cultivate with him. The truth is that our walk with God is meant to bear fruit. To be certain, our walk with God is loaded with personal benefit, but there is a whole reality that God works within us for the sake of others.
A couple of weeks ago, we completed our final seminar of the summer. The Freedom Seminar. A key takeaway was the twofold reality that God wants to free us through our walk with him and equip us to walk with others into freedom. It was incredible to see participants welcome God to bring healing and transformation in their lives. Curses were replaced with blessings, fear with faith, and shame with joy. This freedom is the fruit of our relationship with God, and what he longs to see further cultivated in the lives of others, through us.
Outreach
Discipleship Journey
By the end of this week, we will conclude our summer workshops for refugees in North Africa. We will see over 300 complete the programs! Several are newcomers, having fled their home nation in the past year; others have spent years in the community we serve.
God has led us to create an incredible process for discipleship as we have walked with him. From home visits to workshops to UofN schools, we can walk a journey with some of these refugees to see them understand their missional call, no matter where they live. It is also through this context that we can witness several take the long journey to begin to follow Jesus, leaving behind their previous beliefs. This is something we have prayed for a long time and are so grateful to see the fruit.
