John 15:4—”Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”

The above image is the type of image I have always seen attached to this verse. Every study on the verse or sermon or book always shows these incredibly beautiful, healthy grapes, always grapes. The sun is often shown to help create the scene. I get that. I also get why we want the pictures we use to be the best and the cleanest and the prettiest. It is called marketing. But marketing is a business term and marketing isn’t always honest or truthful. When the Bible was written, there were no photos. I know there was art though. Concepts were taught visually sometimes, but they were mostly taught by speaking and learning was by hearing and seeing real situations, like in nature. Farming was a way of life and understood by most everyone. It was their way of life. They experienced it, so these concepts were real life scenarios that people were all familiar with. Today, many many people are not farmers and have no clue about any of it’s concepts, but we are inundated with pictures, lots and lots of pictures. I think it is time we start sharing different pictures to explain time- tested, life- giving truths to replace outdated unrealistic visuals and I am not talking about magazine covers in the world, but in the church too. Well, I think I need to. I take pictures. I can do that. And I’m writing here today to share something I’ve learned and something I think just might give a different visual to the above verses. The verse is a very helpful truth to someone who understands it and understands it in a way that is beneficial to their life and struggle, etc.

I am so downplaying it. What makes me sad it that sometimes in today’s world the verse doesn’t make sense to a lot of people for reasons I have already mentioned. I grew up in the church. I am familiar with scripture and these types of pictures never diid explain it in a way that was helpful for me. I like beauty, but I like honesty a whole lot more. These pictures seem like dishonest representations of a very real concept. For me, these type of images have always helped play into my tendency toward perfectionism. I thought it was possible to be a perfect grape or tomato if all I did was stick to the vine. Someone reading this might still think this is possible. Maybe it is under the most perfect conditions, however I am going to share a more realistic visaual of what abiding and bearing fruit just might look like. I think there are a whole lot of people “trying” to bear fruit and “trying” to make it look beautiful and perfect.

During the lockdown, I bought seeds and started them. As a result, I have had my very first garden this summer. I grew my very own kale and arugula and celery and peppers and tomatoes. I understand that tomatoes and grapes are different. I also know that tomatoes grow on plants, but they do also grow on vines. There are apparently two types of tomato plants. I am sharing a perfect official image of vine ripened tomatoes below, so my visual comparisons match.

So, now we have two perfectly beautiful images of the best versions of fruit on the vines. Just take a look at the two pictures again. Scroll back up and look at them. What are they? They are perfect examples of fruit growing on vines. Well, let me tell you what I learned in my garden. My lesson is stretching visually because I do not have vine tomatoes in my garden. Mine are of the plant variety and I researched the name, but I’m not going to use the term here to try to impress you. The point is that I am sharing a lesson I learned in my garden and with my tomatoes to give a perhaps more realistic view of what it might look like to abide and bear fruit.

This picture and the one above are of larger Cherokee Purples.

These are my little cherry tomatoes. the next two photos are the photos of the plants of both types.

The above pictures are a much more honest view for me of what abiding looks like or can look like. I am aware that I just might be able to find a perfect plant that produces perfect fruit and that the plant looks no different after producing fruit than it did before. I could probably do the research and grow something like that in my garden next year. And then I could have perfect pictures to visually explain a verse the way it always has been shown, at least to me. But, this year I grew these little precious baby tomatoes and they taught me a very big lesson. I thought beautiful fruit came from genetically “perfect” plants and all it really depended on was the love and care provided by the Farmer or Gardener. At the beginning of the season, I was armed with these beliefs and serious about learning to garden and help these little seeds make it to maturity, and I hoped they would produce some yummy fruit that we could enjoy. Sure, I understood that it rains and that it needed to rain for the benefit of the plants. I knew that there would be storms and insects and that the plants needed to be supported and sometimes might even need “cages”. I learned from experts that I needed to remove the "suckers”. I moved the seedlings inside when the temps were still too cool, I transplanted the plants when they got too big for the little containers they were in. I watered them when it didn’t rain. I used organic fertilizer to give them extra nutrition to insure their success. I did everything I could to help these plants succeed and do what they needed to do to produce fruit. And, produce fruit they did. Here is where the lesson is big for me. Do you see the condition of the plants in the above pictures? I had no idea that the tomato plants would look like this when they were bearing fruit. I had never seen or at least never noticed tomato plants this time of year when they were producing. I guess I always just focused on the fruit. That is their purpose, right? These plants are far from perfect looking, but they are still producing fruit. It is yummy fruit, but not evey piece is perfect. Some of the pieces have scars or ridges. I had no idea that plants that produced fruit this good could look like these guys do. They are wilted and sagging and dry and bent and scarred and battered and bruised. And they still produce amazing, usable, nutritious fruit! They sure don’t look like they could. If I hadn’t seen the fruit for myself attached to the vine, no one could have convinced me that they actually had. The thing here is that I was the Gardener. I know what I did. I know I took care of those plants. I see what they are producing. I do not care what they look like as long as they are doing what I put them in my yard to do. So the lesson I learned In the garden is that it doesn’t take a perfect plant to produce a great piece of fruit and the process that a plant goes through to produce fruit isn’t always pretty. Sometimes they need help and support to make it through the storms to keep their branches attached so that they can produce fruit. The Gardner can do everything He can to help the plant produce that fruit, but it is the plant that has got to to do the work and the growing and it may not always be pretty!