Do you ever feel the pressure of living out your calling, and wonder how you are going to be what everyone needs or wants you to be? How are you going to raise these kids? How are you going to preach on Sunday? How are you going to show up to a marriage which requires so much? How are you going to do one more day in a menial, thankless job that barely pays the bills? How are you going to love a person in your life who keeps responding in bitterness? How are you going to listen to the question of an aging parent and answer with patience for the hundredth time today? I sometimes get incredibly overwhelmed with all the things. Each of them are (I believe) callings from God, but I don’t feel I have enough for them on any given day.
A couple of days ago as I read through John, I came back to the very beginning where it says:
For he came to be a witness to point the way to the Light of Life, and to help everyone believe. John was not that Light but he came to show who is. For he was merely a messenger to speak the truth about the Light. For the Light of the Truth was about to come into the world and shine upon everyone. John 1:7-9
What a relief! Just like John, I am not the Light and I don’t have to be all that this entails. Instead, I get to be a messenger to point others to the Light, and to allow His Life to shine through me to them. The pressure is off! I don’t have to save anyone, love anyone, have patience with anyone or pursue anyone. That is God’s job. The Light is the One who saves, loves, has patience, pursues and generates all the other fruit of the Spirit in the branch on the Vine. I realize that usually when I get overwhelmed it’s because I’m trying to generate the Life of Christ in my own strength with my own willpower.
I walk past a grape vine outside a neighbor’s house many times a week. It produces the most delightfully sweet little grapes that explode in your mouth. They often leave bags out by the grapes to let the neighbors collect some because there are more than they can use. And yet in all the times I have walked past this vine, I have never heard it straining and working to produce the fruit. The lifeblood of the vine flows through each branch, and the fruit is a natural outflow of that life.
We are the same, as Jesus calls us branches on the Vine. We don’t need to be the Savior. In fact, we make really terrible gods. Instead, we rest as branches on a Vine, allowing the lifeblood of the Vine to flow through us and naturally produce the fruit of the Spirit. This beautiful simplicity is not easy because we fight to be our own source often. But when we can relax and recognize that we aren’t the Light but are to bear witness to the Light, the pressure is off!
What a beautiful way of doing Life! Rest, abide, be still. Let Him be the Light and quit trying to shine by yourself.
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” John 8:12