The life of the vine is "not of pleasure nor ease." Almost before the flower fades the fruit begins to grow, but instead of being allowed to grow where it will, it is tied immediately to a stake, forced to draw out of the hard hillside its nourishment. When "the fair shoots begin to wind and wave in the blue air, and feel how sweet it is," along comes the gardener with pruning hooks and shears, "and strips it bear of innocent pride...and cuts deep and sure, unsparing for its tenderness and joy."
When the vine bends low with the weight of the grapes, "wrought out of the long striving of its heart." But ah! the hands are ready to tear down the treasures of the grapes; the feet are there to tread them in the wine-press "until blood rivers of the wine run over and the land is full of joy. But the vine standeth stripped and desolate, having given all, and now its own dark time is come, and no man payeth back to it the comfort and glory of its gift." Winter comes, and the vine is cut back to the very stem, "despoiled, disfigured, left a leafless stock, alone through all the dark days that shall come."
While the vine undergoes this death, the wine it has produced is gladdening the heart of man. Have you, perhaps, like the vine, given happiness to others, yet found yourself seemingly forsaken? Has it made you bitter? We need the paradigm of the vine, which is "not bitter for the torment undergone, not barren for the fullness yielded up... The vine from every living limb bleeds wine; is it the poorer for that spirit shed?...
Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth;
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most hath most to give...
Why is it that we do not seem to listen to God's voice except when we are in trouble? God speaks sometimes through soft summer air, but we do not feel it to be God--only the wind. He speaks to us when friends meet happily and all is merry, but we see only our friends. When a bird's song moves us to sudden rapture, do we hear God's voice or only the bird's? But when the sharp strokes flesh and heart run through for thee and not another, then we know what no one else in all the universe can feel or know--the hidden tortured nerved, the incommunicable pain...
God speaks Himself to us, as mothers speak
To their own babes, upon the tender flesh
With fond familiar touches close and dear;
Because He cannot choose a softer way to make us feel that He Himself is near,
And each a part His own beloved and Known...
He gives His angels charge of those who sleep,/But He Himself watches with those who wake...the Son of God was made perfect through suffering, our salvation's seal set in the front of His Humanity." He was the Man of Sorrows, "and the Cross of Christ is more to us than all His miracles...
But if, impatient, though slip thy cross,
Thou wilt not find it in this world again,
Nor in another; here, and here alone,
Is given thee to suffer for God's sake.
In other worlds we shall more perfectly
Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him.
Grow near and nearer to Him with all delight;
But then we shall not anymore be called
To suffer, which is our appointment here.
Canst thou not suffer then one hour, -- or two?
Christ was forsaken, so must thou be too.
Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand.
Only the cruel crushing of the feet,
When through the bitter night the Lord comes down
To tread the wine press--Not by sight, but faith,
Endure, endure, -- be faithful to the end!"
May we not let slip any cross Jesus may present to us, any little way of letting go of ourselves, any smallest task to do with gladness and humility, any disappointment accepted with grace and silence. These are His appointments. If we miss them here, we'll not find them again in this world or in any other.