My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour. Luke 1:46
I love this verse because of its intimate nature. This is a young woman who knows her Lord. Who wants to know him more. This is the kind of woman I long to be.
About five years ago, God gave me two visions within days of each other. They weren’t visions in my mind alone, which I’ve also experienced on other occasions. Rather, they were lit up on my bedroom ceiling when the rest of my room was dark from nightfall … appearing slowly and remaining for a short time before fading away entirely.
The first was of an intricate vine intertwined in small square shapes within a larger square with rounded edges. The smaller squares served as windows into an ocean of colors … soft hues of blues, greens, yellows, and turquoise moving and swirling together as though alive. The second vision was of a single branch stretched out in a slight curve with many small leaves … much like a fern.
For days, I kept these to myself … asking God to tell me why he showed me this. Clearly there was great significance here, and I didn’t want to come up with my own theories.
Finally, I felt compelled to share it with my teenage son while we were in the car one day, just the two of us. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said to me … He is the vine and you are the branch. Wow. How did I not get that on my own? Haha
I think God may have kept that wisdom from me until it was spoken to me by someone else whom I trusted. This way, I would know for certain it was from God himself and not me. I may have thought it too simple. But God’s wisdom often comes in forms of simplicity.
After that day, and little by little, God revealed more. The colors represented his Holy Spirit power, alive and active, available to me through the Vine which is his Son. As his beloved, I am connected to this Vine as a branch is connected to a tree … it’s source. If one were to remove a branch from its source, it would be only a branch and would not have access to all the tree provides. In the same way, if I disconnect from the Vine, I disconnect from the source of its power and all that it provides. And while we cannot lose our salvation, we can surely live as though we do.
I’m certain I’m not alone when I tell you that oftentimes in my life, I’ve felt powerless against the schemes of the enemy and the despair I’ve felt in my circumstances and struggles. And in my own striving, failure hit hard and hope seemed nothing more than a fairy tale lived out only in my dreams.
But wait. There’s more. There has to be.
Yes. It’s him. But in order to get to all of him, it has to be all about him. Everything else has to be secondary to grab hold of him fully. It’s like that moment we’ve seen in the movies where a person is hanging off a cliff and their rescuer is holding on to only one of their hands because in the other hand is a precious possession they don’t want to let go of. Finally, the person who is holding onto them tells them they need both hands to pull them up over the edge.
Maybe you’re there right now. Dangling from the side of a cliff and Jesus is holding on to one of your hands. But he needs both to pull you up more than half way. What do you do?
I believe most Christians will unknowingly choose to live half-way over that cliff for the majority of their lives because they’re too afraid of giving him both hands, first emptied.
He loves us so much and wants it all for us. But he let’s us choose. And that’s what love really does. It doesn’t force. But it always hopes.
So what will we choose today? It’s a day by day choice. It’s a way of living that starts new every morning. Where every day is a new beginning. And it’s never too late to give him both of our hands.
God, I desperately need you. I cannot do this life on my own. And I don’t want to. Thank you for not asking me to. But instead offering your whole self for my wholeness. Help me let go of everything else so I can grab on to you fully. Amen.
