I often sit on the bench next to our house which overlooks the patio and the backyard. Away from the noise and busyness, on the back patio one enters a natural oasis of plants, flowers, trees, animals, insects and birds. On this particular afternoon I sat on the bench just to take it all in, to look and listen, especially to the birds. The chatty wren was trilling its melody from inside the anemone bush. The robin was swooping in to replenish her hungry hatchlings with her most recent morsels. The jays were scolding each other from the treetops. An occasional hummingbird would sip from the geraniums and then dart away. And just as suddenly there was a loud bang on the window to my left.

I turned immediately toward the sound only to see a little, gray bird crumple and fall to the walkway below the window. It was a nuthatch. It sat hunched on the pavement looking straight ahead, undoubtedly stunned by the blow that had suddenly interrupted its flight. As much as I wanted to gather it up to tend this poor little bird, I resisted, thinking that I might do more harm than good. Five minutes went by, it didn’t move. Ten minutes later, it remained in the same posture. By around fifteen minutes after the collision, it started to shake all over. As it shook, it tilted its head back till its beak was pointed straight up and it repeatedly opened and closed its beak. 

This continued for the next few minutes, body shaking, head tilted back, eyes closed, beak opening and closing. I expected that this was an indication that the little nuthatch was finally expiring after such a crushing blow. Sadly I went inside, not wanting to witness its last breaths, knowing that there was nothing I could do to help. I told my husband Michael about this poor creature and what I presumed was its demise. We gave our feathered friend its privacy for its final few moments.

A few minutes later we were back outside resuming our afternoon chores. But the nuthatch was shockingly gone!  It apparently had recovered enough to fly away. Hurray! But what was all that shaking and head tilting and beak opening about? And just as quickly as I asked that question, this is what occurred to me:

 “Have I ever flown into a window?

 Have I ever been going one direction and been dramatically stopped in my tracks?

 Has that experience left me stunned and disoriented?

 Has it taken me a while to recover? 

Has it shaken me to the core?

 Have I looked up to heaven and called out to God? 

Have I repeatedly called upon the Lord for help, for forgiveness for going my own way,

 for strength to go His way?” 

To all of these questions, my answer is yes. Am I grateful that despite the hurt, God has “stopped” me from going the way that I was headed? Absolutely. Would the nuthatch have fared well if it had been able to get through the window and enter the house? No, not at all. Neither would I have fared well if I had been able to have the career that I had planned, married the person that I thought was “the one”, or had no children so that I could pursue my dreams. 

What about you? Have you ever hit a window?

Has a sudden stop left you stunned and disoriented for quite a while?

Has this loss left you shaking and shaken?

Have you tipped your head heavenward?

Have you cried out to God again and again? 

If your strength is renewed, are you willing to fly in a new direction?

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary and his

understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted;

but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up 

on wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isa.40:28-31

I lift my eyes up to the hills. Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. Ps. 121:1

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, 

I shall not be shaken.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Ps.16:7,8,11

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground ` apart from your Father. Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many 

sparrows.  Mt.10:29,31

Yes, you are of more value than that little nuthatch.

At the end of Jesus’ life, just before he entered the Garden of Gethsemane, he likely walked through the vineyards of the Kidron Valley with his disciples. He used this setting to help them to understand his relationship with them and theirs with him. We read about this in John 15 where Jesus tells them about his Father as the vinedresser, himself as the vine and his disciples as the branches. 

On a recent trip that my husband Michael and I took to Sicily, we stayed on the property of a vineyard owner. By interacting with him and watching him as he tended his precious vines, we were observing John 15 in real time, the tender care of the vinedresser, the resilience of the vine and the delicate dependence of the branches.In previous posts, I wrote about the vineyard, the vine dresser, the vine and the branches. Now we come to yet another character element to consider in this allegory, the sap.

 Hidden inside each vine and each branch is another component that is essential to the fruitfulness of the vineyard, the sap. If the branches are securely connected to the vine, (see the Consider the Branches post) all the water and nutrients that the vine gathers through its roots are dispersed to the branches through the sap. If the branches become disconnected from the vine, they quickly wither because the sap no longer sustains them.

In both chapters 14 and 16 of John’s gospel, which are part of Jesus’ vineyard discourse, he assures them that he is sending the helper, the Holy Spirit who will “take what is mine and declare it to you.” In fact this hidden helper, the Spirit of truth, cannot be received by those who are not connected to Jesus the true vine. But for those, like his disciples, who are connected through their faith in Jesus, their Savior and Sovereign, he says of the Holy Spirit, “he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 16:15)

The hidden secret to a fruitful vineyard is the sap. We don’t see the sap, but we certainly see the results of its steady and nourishing flow. If the vine is well tended and its roots are secure, if the branches are firmly connected to the vine in the proper location, then the conditions are in place for the lifeblood of the vine to provide for the branches’ growth and fruitfulness.

This brings me again to think about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every one who has surrendered to Jesus and said yes to Him as their salvation. The Holy Spirit leads us to grow more and more securely and deeply connected to Jesus. He pours into our lives his life transforming sap of  truth, counsel, comfort, conviction of sin, correction, boldness, freedom from sin and self, drip by drip, little by little. Just as we cannot see the growth of a branch from one day to the next, neither does the work of the Spirit in our lives produce instant transformation. 2 Cor.3:17-18 describes the Spirit’s work this way:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being 

changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

One degree at a time is quite imperceptible, but degree by degree the Spirit transforms  us so that we come to resemble our Creator and Savior in both character and impact.

Another thing that the Spirit produces in the life of the human branch is fruit. These are outward character changes that reflect the inward reality that we are children of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, 

faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered was shaken,

and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:31

This kind of fruit is the fruit of a Spirit-saturated life which over time matures us such that we grow to resemble Him! 

In the letter of Paul to the church in Rome, he uses in an analogy a practice that was well known in the ancient world, the practice of grafting branches into a root stock. In this analogy, he is telling these non-Jewish believers in Christ that they have been grafted into the root of God’s work of redemption in the world that was carried forward through the Jewish people. But now, these Gentile Christians, whom he calls “wild olive shoots”, are grafted into the cultivated olive tree such that they “now share in the nourishing root” (Rom.11:17) He also reminds them of the natural order of things. “Remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you.” (Rom.11:18) 

The act of grafting involves cutting off a branch from, in this case, a wild olive tree, slicing a notch into the cultivated tree, into which the graft is inserted. These are then bound together and the graft “takes” once the sap from the parent tree flows into the cutting. Thus it becomes a partaker of all that the nourishing root supplies through its sap. It is the life of God, the Holy Spirit, the source of our spiritual life, who produces outward evidence of that life, which is fruit.

For me, the recognition of the Holy Spirit was indeed hidden for the first two decades of my life as a child of God. I read about the Holy Spirit in scripture, sang songs about the Spirit but had little awareness of the crucial part that the Holy Spirit played in my life as a child of God. My dear California friends and a spunky Spirit-filled eighty year old counselor helped me to recognize, invite, yield to and depend upon the Spirit to do what my own flesh could never do. In Inviting the Holy Spirit to take over, it was as if a constriction was removed so that His powerful sap could flow more freely. Indeed as it says in Romans 8:6 that, “to set the mind on the flesh (my own natural strength and ability to live my life to please the Lord) is death (failure over and over again!), but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” It is true! Inviting the Holy Spirit to take over, depending on the hidden work of the Spirit to strengthen, lead, transform, give boldness and courage, give power to obey etc., is the hidden work that brings life and peace. He truly does what I could never ever do apart from Him.  

What about you?

How do you understand and relate to the Holy Spirit and his work in your life? 

How does this simple illustration of the sap flowing from the vine into the branches give you new insight into the Holy Spirit’s role in your life?

How much of your Christian life is based on you trying your hardest to become like Jesus and working to produce fruit for God? 

How do we detect when we are relying on our own strength and when we are letting the Holy Spirit be the hidden yet transformative source of our will and work?

Is there evidence in your growth and in the fruit of your character and works that you are well connected to Jesus?

 Are there steps of obedience to take that might make your connection with Him deeper?

“I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not

go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Jn.16:7